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l)al (5* Jgvarts 

The Cross Pull 
The Yellow Horde 
The Passing of the Old West 
The Bald Face : and Other 
Animal Stories 
The Settling of the Sage 
Fur Sign 


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THIS STRETCH OF THE CLEARWATER WAS A VERITABLE 
MUSKRAT PARADISE. Frontispiece. See po(je 77 . 


FUR SIGN 

Bj- 

HAL G. SYARTS 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

LYNN BOGUE HUNT 



BOSTON 

LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 
1922 



Copyright, ig22. 
By Hal G. Evarts. 


All rights reserved 


Published September, 1922 

n: 



Printed in the United States of America 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

This stretch of the Clearwater was a veri- 
table muskrat paradise . . . Frontispiece 

Battler rose and proceeded to the edge of 

the firelit space .... page 14 

The watchers could see all of Neal . . 70 

Battler threw himself in the path of the 

charging bear 171 


V 




FUR SIGN 


FUR SIGN 


I 



HE fire had settled to a bed of darkening 


^ embers, but an occasional curling breeze 
stole across the forest floor and fanned it to a 
mass of glowing coals topped by a fitful blaze 
that cast grotesque shadows on the trees. Two 
forms showed lumpily beneath the canvas tarp 
of a bed roll spread near the night fire. A 
gripping chill tightened down as the fire died 
out. One of the shapes stirred uneasily in the 
blankets and resolved itself into a boy, his head 
propped on one arm as he peered into the black 
shadows under the trees. An Airedale lifted 
his head from the edge of the bed tarp, 
thumped his bobbed tail drowsily and resumed 
his nap. 

“ You asleep. Buckskin? ” the boy whis- 
pered. 


3 


FUR SIGN 


A second boy thrust his head from the blan- 
kets. 

“ No; not quite/’ he answered. “ You no- 
tice it’s getting cold, Rawhide? ” 

“ Sort of,” Rawhide confessed. “ Who’d 
have guessed at the amount of wood it takes 
to keep a fire all night? ” 

This was the first night out and the newness 
of it all — the glamor of a dream transformed 
to reality, an outfit bought and paid for, the 
prospect of a full year stretching ahead — all 
this was not conducive to peaceful slumber. 
Buckskin slept at last but Rawhide gazed 
wide-eyed into the night. A gi-eat homed owl 
hooted twice from a timbered slope and a loon 
sent up its demented scream from a near-by 
lake. There were occasional dull thuds in the 
timber as ripe walnuts, loosened by the frost, 
dropped to the ground with a pulpy smash of 
rotting hulls. 

Three months before the boy had not been 
known as Rawhide, but as Bob Tanner, who 
m all his sixteen years had never been beyond 

earshot of the throbbing rumble of congested 
4 


FUR SIGN 


city traffic, the clatter of surface cars and the 
rattling clang of elevated trains. None had 
known him as Rawhide, the free lance of the 
open, for it was only on those nights when the 
stale air of poorly ventilated rooms rendered 
him sleepless that his mind had floated afield. 
Then he had straddled a horse and careened 
across the prairies, paddled a canoe through the 
watery highways of the wilderness and piloted 
it through frothing rapids or packed bales of 
rare furs from the winter woods. But when 
the gray city mornings had come around after 
these restless nights, he had been mere Bob 
Tanner of the tenements, with his stoop and his 
contracted chest gained from toiling long hours 
over an acid vat in order to contribute his bit 
toward the support of the overlarge family 
whose squalid quarters he shared, relatives of 
the mother he could not remember. 

Rawhide nestled closer in his blankets, exult- 
ing in the thought that there would be no more 
of those city mornings, after nights of fancy, 
when he should face the cold reality of Bob 
Tanner’s daily lot. Now he was Rawhide in 
5 


FUR SIGN 


fact as well as fancy, a rover of the wilderness. 
Soon he would roll from his blankets in the 
crisp cool of an autumn dawn, breakfast and 
pack for a long day on the trail. Sleep claimed 
him with this last comforting thought. 

The restless prowling of the Airedale 
roused him with the first streak of rose in the 
east. There was a heavy white frost on the 
grass. A dozen crows shattered the quiet of 
the early morning as Rawhide drew on his 
clothes. He reached beneath the bed tarp and 
produced a handful of shavings and a few dry 
sticks stored there the previous evening to fa- 
cilitate the kindling of the morning cook-fire in 
case of unexpected storms during the night. 
Buckskin repaired to a near-by spring for 
water. 

Both boys splashed faces and hands in a pan 
of the icy spring water before setting about 
the preparation of the morning meal. Raw- 
hide stirred up a stiff batter of flour and water, 
salt and baking powder, then balanced a fry- 
ing-pan on the fire. A bucket of coffee sim- 
mered and at last foamed to a boil as the flames 
6 


FUR SIGN 


curled round the little tin pail. Rawhide 
dropped a lump of lard in the frying-pan. 
When the grease had melted and the bottom of 
the skillet was smoking hot, he poured in a por- 
tion of the flapjack batter. Small flecks of 
white wood ash curled over the edge of the 
skillet and settled on the fresh dough but 
turned black as they absorbed the moisture. 
The top of the flapjack was liberally sprinkled 
with ashes. 

“ She’s ready to turn,” Rawhide pro- 
nounced. 

He shook the skillet gently to loosen the 
flapjack, and with a little forward and upward 
flip of his wrist the skillet-bread was propelled 
a few inches above the pan, turned in mid-air 
and settled back with a hiss on the uncooked 
side. 

Buckskin eyed the crisp brown side now ex- 
posed to view and smacked his lips hungrily. 

“ You’re the best camp cook ever,” he stated 
positively. 

Rawhide lifted his head and rubbed his 
streaming eyes. 

7 


FUR SIGN 


“ Don’t make any difference what side of the 
fire you move to,” he said. “ The wind veers 
round to follow you and blow smoke in your 
eyes. But I expect this fryin’-pan bread will 
go pretty good — aside from a handful of 
ashes.” 

The flapjack was halved and the two adven- 
turers sat cross-legged on the ground, each 
washing down his portion with steaming coffee 
while a second sheet of batter sizzled in the 
skillet. The Airedale rested with his head flat 
between his paws and eyed the banqueters 
wistfully. Whenever he caught the eye of 
either boy he raised his head and jerked his 
stumped tail in supplication. He gave one 
soft bark to gain their attention. 

“ Your turn will come. Battler,” Rawhide 
announced. “ I’ll spoil one likely and that 
will go to you.” 

Some of the flapjacks were scorched on one 
side. All were well seasoned with wood ashes 
and once Rawhide misgauged his toss and 
caught the flapjack on edge on its return to 
the frying-pan. This lumpy ruin was tossed 


FUR SIGN 


to Battler and the Airedale bolted the morsel 
with evident relish. 

“ I’ll go run in the horse herd while you get 
ready to pack,” Buckskin volunteered, when 
the dishes had been washed. 

Rawhide strapped the bed roll and gathered 
all loose articles into compact bundles. He 
had finished by the time Buckskin returned 
with a little bay horse. 

The harness consisted of a band that circled 
the pony’s body behind the shoulders, while a 
second, heavily padded, served as a breast strap 
and was buckled to the first on either side. 
The tips of two long slender poles were thrust 
through loops fashioned in the sides of the 
backstrap and lashed firmly in place, so that 
the entire pull would be taken up by the 
padded strap that crossed the breast. 

An hour later a strange cavalcade filed from 
the timber and struck out across the rolling 
grasslands of the Flint Hills. Rawhide chose 
the route and held the lead rope of Warrior, 
the little bay horse. Warrior was burdened 

with perhaps the first Indian litter that had 
9 


FUR SIGN 


traversed the Flint Hills in five decades. The 
ends of the poles trailed well out behind him 
and upon this primitive but serviceable con- 
veyance the bulk of the outfit was firmly 
lashed. 

Buckskin followed, leading Battler, and the 
Airedale was similarly burdened by a tiny lit- ^ 
ter, to his very evident disgust. This was but 
his second day in the capacity of a beast of 
burden, and if left to follow his own prefer- 
ences he would have elected to range far to 
either side and hunt en route. Rawhide shoul- • 
dered a shotgun as he led the way while Buck- ^ 
skin carried a twenty-two rifle. 

The course of this strange cavalcade led 
down-country between two streams, the north j 
and south forks of the Clearwater. Off to the 
right the Flint Hills dipped away to the bot- i 
tom of the North Fork. Hills rose tier upon f 
tier on the far side of the South Fork, their \ 
slopes clothed with hardwood and showing now 
in a whirl of flaming color where autumn frost 
had plied its magic paintbrush and si)lashed 

the landscape with a thousand blazing hues. 

10 


FUR SIGN 


The Forks converged three miles below and a 
patch of heavy timber marked the flat at the 
confluence. Beyond the Forks the bottoms 
widened out into hay meadows that shot their 
tongues back into the breaks of the Flint Hills 
flanking the Clearwater. The boys hastened 
down the last grassy slope and struck the tim- 
ber at the Forks, the prospective site of their 
winter trapping camp. 

Before noon the camp was pitched. A tent 
eight feet by ten stood under a giant elm mid- 
way between the two streams, the bed roll 
spread in one corner and the slender stock of 
utensils and supplies stored inside. The two 
adventurers viewed their work with pride, the 
thrill of ownership swelling high within 
them. 

“ We’d better start stringing out our traps,” 
Buckskin suggested. “ The sooner we begin 
catching fur, the more money we’ll have in the 
spring.” 

Rawhide dumped ten small steel traps from 
a burlap sack. Their hopes for the future cen- 
tered around those little steel contrivances. 

11 


FUR SIGN 


Battler left off tunneling under a down-log 
and followed them as they set off through the 
timber. 

“ Where will we make the first set? ” Buck- 
skin inquired. 

“ We’ll have to locate fur sign first,” Raw- 
hide stated. “ We’ll likely find some soon. 
Then we’ll make a set.” 

Their speech savored of the jargon of the 
trap line, yet neither boy had ever before set 
a trap. The partners were up against the first 
real trial of their venture. 

“ Muskrats live in the water,” Buckskin as- 
serted. “ It might be a good plan to follow 
the creek.” 

Two hours later they returned to camp and 
the traps were all set. Three had been placed 
on the crest of the creek bank at points where 
claw marks testified that rats used this route 
of exit from their watery abode. Buckskin 
had killed a cottontail, and the head and en- 
trails had been suspended from a low-hanging 
limb and a trap set on the ground some two 

feet below. The rest of the traps had been 
12 


FUR SIGN 


placed in hollow trees and covered lightly with 
wood rot. 

That night the partners sat on either side of 
a fire that blazed before the tent. The arms 
of both boys were stained a deep brown to the 
elbows but three bushels of hulled walnuts, 
spread on the ground to dry, explained this 
strange discoloration. All through the after- 
noon they had been engaged in pounding the 
hulls from fallen nuts and packing them into 
camp. 

“ They’re worth a dollar a bushel,” Rawhide 
commented. “ Maybe more. We ought to 
gather twenty bushels within walking range of 
camp. That will buy our gmb for the next 
two months.” 

‘‘ I wonder if there’s anything in the traps,” 
Buckskin said, after a long silence. “We 
ought to make a good catch of fur to-night. I 
like it out here fine — and I hope we can make 
it through and not have to go back.” 

For Buckskin too was a product of the tene- 
ments. Not long since he had been Wallace 
Porter, ringleader of a corner gang and 
13 


FUR SIGN 


known as Wally to his intimates. The same 
welfare society had sent the two waifs into the 
country for a month and they had worked for 
their board on adjoining farms. Together 
they had planned to stay on after the month 
was up. They had worked on through the 
summer and the little money they had earned 
had sufficed to buy the outfit. Warrior was 
an old pony and had been bought for a ten- 
dollar bill. The tent, the pump gun, rifle and 
utensils had been picked up here and there at 
figures greatly reduced from their original 
cost. There was sufficient food supply for a 
month and a cash surplus of two dollars and 
a dime in camp. 

“ We won’t go back,” Rawhide asserted 
sturdily. “ We’ll manage to weather it 
through some way or another.” 

Battler suddenly lifted his head from be- 
tween his paws and sniffed the wind. A curl- 
ing tongue of wood smoke assailed his nostrils 
and he sneezed, then rose and proceeded to the 
edge of the firelit space and gazed off into the 

black shadows under the trees. The hackle 
14 



BATTLER ROSE AND PROCEEDED TO THE EDGE OF THE 
FIRELIT SPACE. P(((/e 14 . 







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FUR SIGN 


fur bristled into a roach along his spine and a 
rumble sounded deep in his throat but was 
suppressed. It was not the Airedale’s way to 
rage hysterically except at the finish of a hunt. 
He was a quiet, businesslike dog, a silent 
trailer, and when he worked out a track he 
made no sound to warn the intended prey of 
liis approach till within striking distance; then 
he loosed his fighting bellow and rushed his 
quarry. When Battler hunted, there was no 
such ringing music as filled the night when a 
baying hound ran a track in the hills. Battler 
disappeared in the night and a moment there- 
after his savage snarls issued from the timber. 
A man’s voice angrily ordered him off. This 
startled both boys and a vague suspicion of the 
stranger crept into their minds. Why this si- 
lent approach, unless with the purpose of spy- 
ing on their camp ? 

“You Battler! Come here!” Buckskin 
commanded. “ Get on in here ! You ! ” 

They stepped outside the circle of light cast 
by the fire, and after their pupils became re- 
adjusted to the darkness they could make out 
15 


FUR SIGN 


the form of a man a few yards away through 
the trees. 

“ Call off this dog,” he ordered. ‘‘ He gave 
me a start, pouncing out on me thataway.” 

Battler withdrew under the combined urg- 
ing of both boys but it was evident that this 
retreat was against the Airedale’s will and he 
eyed the stranger with thinly veiled hostility 
when he came to the fire. 

“ I wore rubber boots so’s I could wade 
across to your camp,” the man volunteered, as 
he sat on a down-log and held out his hands 
toward the heat of the fire. “ Them rubber 
soles don’t give off much noise so I guess the 
dog didn’t hear me till I was coming up the 
near bank of the creek.” 

He tapped one knee to indicate the hip boots 
with which he was shod. 

‘‘ My name is Reese Neil,” he went on. 
“ I’m camped down below. You’re the boys 
Snyder and Brown was telling me about, likely 
— the fellows they give permission to trap on 
their leases.” 

Rawhide nodded. 


16 


FUR SIGN 


“ That’s us,” he agreed. 

“ This is a big country through here,” Neil 
observed. “ There’s room for us all. I’m 
trapping a little myself.” 

The country for twenty miles around was 
utilized mainly for pasture. The stockmen 
cut over the grassy bottoms for hay rather than 
rip up the scattered flats with a plow and seed 
them to crops. Brown had nine sections under 
fence, his holdings extending some four miles 
downstream from the forks. Snyder held a 
similar block stretching up country. The hills 
above this last lease were mostly timber hold- 
ings or Government land. 

“Yes; there’s plenty of room,” Rawhide 
agreed. “ There’s several hundred sections of 
Flint Hill country to trap.” 

“ That’s what I was just going to say,” Neil 
announced. “ Our minds work the same. 
Snyder and Brown told me they’d give you the 
right to trap on their leases and that I’d better 
pitch camp somewheres else. I was just 
• thinking that we all might as well get together 

on that. I’ll trap the leases if it comes handy 
17 


FUR SIGN 


to me and you trap outside whenever the notion 
takes hold. That way we can any of us range 
the whole country. What do you say? ” 

Each boy found Neil’s personality unprepos- 
sessing to an extreme. His stubby beard was 
caked with dirt, his clothing equally disrepu- 
table, and his small ferrety eyes shifted con- 
stantly as if it tired him to fix them on any one 
object for more than a second at a time. 

“ I hardly know,” Rawhide hesitated. “ It 
sounds all right and we want to play square. 
But of course we couldn’t give you the right to 
trap the leases unless we’d see Brown and 
Snyder first. You see how it is.” 

“ Oh, that’s all right,” Neil returned easily. 
“ Neither of them cares a snap. But of 
course you’re dead right to tell them. Al- 
ways play open and square. That’s my way. 
I’ll maybe throw out a few traps up in here 
and then any time you see Brown or Snyder 
you can tell them about our arrangement.” 

“No, I expect we’d better let things rest as 
they are,” Buckskin decided. “At least till 

after we see Mr. Snyder. I worked on his 
18 


FUR SIGN 


home place during the summer and know him 
right well. Whatever he says goes with me. 
But up till then you’d better not trap on the 
leases.” 

Neil nodded, apparently undisturbed by this 
flat refusal. 

“ I hear talk that you all are trapping to 
make a stake to go to Wyoming and home- 
stead,” he said. 

“ Maybe,” Rawhide confessed. “ But not 
for a year or two yet. That countiy is a long 
way from here and we may never get started.” 

“No reason,” Neil stated. “ There’s land 
a-plenty out there. But I’d head out pretty 
soon before the best is picked over. I’ve got 
relatives out around Two Buttes. I’m headed 
for there myself before long.” 

For an hour he entertained them with tales 
of the trap line and of hunts for big game in 
the western hills. Their original suspicions 
were lulled and forgotten under the magic in- 
terest he wove around the country both longed 
to see. At last Neil rose and stretched. 

“ I’m camped two mile below Brown’s line 
19 


FUR SIGN 


fence, south side of the creek,’’ he said. “ Drop 
down and pay me a visit.” 

After his departure they sat and gazed into 
the embers of the dying fire. 

“ JNIaybe he isn’t so bad,” Buckskin re- 
marked after a while. 

“ No. But his boots were dry when he came 
to the fire,” Rawhide stated. “ He said he’d 
just waded out of the creek. He must have 
been standing this side of it for ten minutes, 
at least, or the water would have showed on his 
boots.” 

“ Then he lied,” Buckskin said. “ He was 
trying to hang round and get a line on our 
camp. But it don’t matter much. He can’t 
trap the leases without we say the word.” 

The boys sought their bed roll and a vast 
content filled their souls. They had planned 
big plans for the future and these centered 
round the ten traps strung out through the 
timber. Their hopes might have run less high 
if they had realized that they had made the mis- 
takes common to beginners ; that their trap line 

as now set would not be apt to yield one catch 
20 


FUR SIGN 


in a month. But the wonder of this first night 
in camp was not clouded by knowledge of these 
flaws in their reckoning. 

The shadows of the fire flickered across the 
walls of the tent. It was a good old world. 
They were on their own, and out of all human- 
ity there was not one single soul to waste more 
than a casual thought as to their whereabouts 
or to feel one pang of regret if they should 
never again return to the city slum from which 
they sprang. It was up to them. Battler 
bedded down in the door of the tent as the fire 
died down, and they slept to dream of rich har- 
vests of fur on the morrow. 


21 


II 


/^LD Jack Kennedy rode through the north 
pasture and leaned from his saddle to in- 
spect some strange marks. His mind flashed 
back nearly a half century into the past to a 
time when similar marks would have given rise 
to serious reflections. 

“ Looks for all the world like the drag of an 
Indian litter,” he told the horse. “ But I 
reckon not.” 

He followed the trail to a bare spot and dis- 
mounted to study the sign. The hoofprints of 
a horse showed between the marks of dragging 
poles. 

“ Now there’s been some sort of a gypsy out- 
fit trailing through here for a fact,” he said. 
“ That’s the first time I’ve seen the marks of a 
litter drag in many a moon — close onto forty 
years.” 

He swimg to the saddle and followed the 
22 


FUR SIGN 


trail out of sheer curiosity. It led to the little 
tent pitched at the forks of the Clearwater. 
The Airedale was off on a hunt and the two 
boys had no warning of his approach till a voice 
hailed them from outside. 

They emerged from the tent to find a stran- 
ger sitting his horse in their dooryard. He 
seemed the incarnation of the great outdoars as 
Rawhide had pictured it. He wore a battered 
slouch hat, a leather vest, and overalls with the 
legs tucked into high-heeled riding boots. The 
drooping white mustache showed in marked re- 
lief against the weathered mahogany back- 
ground of his face. 

Rawhide had read that distances were far in 
the wilderness, that the traveler was ever hun- 
gry. Custom demanded that the wayfaring 
stranger should be fed. That was the cour- 
tesy of the open as Rawhide understood it. 

“ Get down, stranger,” he said. “ Get down 
and eat. I’ll start cooking up a bite.” 

The maze of sun wrinkles deepened round 
Kennedy’s keen old blue eyes but he repressed 

the smile that struggled to break through. 

23 


FUR SIGN 


“ Don’t bother, boys,” he said. “ I’ve fed. 
But I’ll step off and visit round for a spell. It 
appears likely we’re going to be neighbors for 
the winter. I’m feeding stock and ridin’ fence 
for Snyder and Brown. They was telling me 
a pair of trappers was going to work the 
Forks. My shack is up the North Fork about 
four mile.” 

Rawhide essayed introductions. 

“ My name is Rawhide,” he volunteered. 
“And my friend here goes by the name of 
Buckskin. We’re sure glad to have you drop 
in.” 

The sun wrinkles deepened again at these 
fanciful titles but the old man answered 
gravely enough. 

“And mine is Kennedy,” he informed. 
“ I’m right glad to have you folks for neigh- 
bors. We’ll have to visit back and forth.” 

He sat on a down-log near the tent and fired 
up his pipe. Battler came into camp and 
sniffed the newcomer critically, then rested his 
jaws on the stranger’s knee and looked up into 

his face as Kennedy scratched his head. 

24 : 


FUR SIGN 


“ How’s the luck ? ” Kennedy queried. “ I 
expect you’re catching fur a-plenty.” 

“ Not any great quantity,” Rawhide con- 
fessed. “ Fur seems rather scarce.” 

“ Why, man, this country is just all littered 
up with fur sign,” Kennedy objected. “ I’ve 
been noticing. Fur has been way down for 
the last few seasons and the Forks haven’t been 
trapped in two years. You ought to clean up 
a nice little stake this winter.” 

“ Then why haven’t we made a catch in three 
rounds of the traj) line? ” Buckskin asked. 
“ Not one single pelt.” 

Kennedy failed to answer this question di- 
rect. During his ride through the timbered 
flat he had discovered two traps set in hollow 
trees, another on the bare earth of the creek 
bank. He rambled on about a variety of sub- 
jects and drew the partners out to talk about 
themselves. Kennedy sensed what this ven- 
ture meant to these two waifs without home or 
parents. He knew, too, that if left to their 
own devices they could not make enough to 

keep grub in camp even in a land where fur 
25 


FUR SIGN 


was plentiful. Those trap sets had branded 
them as raw novices. He could start them 
right if they would heed his suggestions. Ken- 
nedy rose and knocked the ashes from his 
pipe. 

“ I’ll be sauntering on back,” he said. “ I’ve 
been pinching toes and stretching pelts for the 
best part of fifty years. If there’s anything I 
can tell you don’t hesitate to ask. Now if you 
find a few spare hours you might drop round 
and look my shack over some time to-morrow.” 

Battler followed Kennedy’s horse a few hun- 
dred yards through the timber and stood look- 
ing after him. A few nights past he had also 
followed Reese Neil when he departed from 
camp, but on that occasion the Airedale had 
kept his distance from the man, plainly evi- 
dencing his dislike by his stiff, aloof manner 
and the half-raised hackle fur on the point of 
his shoulders. 

“ You can always count on an Airedale’s 
judgment,” Rawhide asserted. “ He likes 
Kennedy fine but he didn’t care much for 
Reese Neil.” 


26 


FUR SIGN 


“ Then he and I are agreed,” Buckskin com- 
mented. “ Neither did I,” 

The boys showed up at Kennedy’s cabin 
soon after breakfast on the following day. 
This was conclusive evidence that they had ac- 
cepted his proffer of friendly counsel as to the 
ways of the trap line. 

“What about this fellow Neil?” Rawhide 
asked after a while. “ He wants to trap the 
leases and let us trap outside. That way we 
can any of us trap where we i)lease.” 

“You can trap wherever you please right 
now,” Kennedy stated. “And Neil can’t work 
the leases because Snyder and Brown won’t let 
any one cut in on you boys unless you say the 
word. You’d be giving him the best end of 
the deal. I’d keep him off. He’s got plenty 
of country to trap without bothering you. 
Then you can tell him to take all the country 
below Brown’s line fence while you boys work 
from there up.” 

Kennedy produced a thin, tapering board. 

“ This is a rat board,” he said. “ If I’m go- 
ing to show you the game we might as well 
27 


FUR SIGN 


start at the first. You mustn’t slit fur open 
down the middle like you peel the hide from a 
cow. It’s got to be cased, pulled off like you’d 
pull off a sock wrong side out, and stretched 
on a casing board. You’ll need stretchers 
a-plenty, once you start knocking out fur. 
I’ve marked the measurements out on this pat- 
tern. That’s for big rats. You’ll have to 
make a sprinkling of boards a half inch smaller 
throughout.” 

The pattern was made from quarter-inch 
stuff. It was twenty inches long and six inches 
across at the base, tapering almost impercep- 
tibly to a width of five and a half inches at the 
point where the shoulders would come. From 
this point the board was sloped more abruptly 
to a blunt rounded end for the nose of the pelt. 
The patterns for opossum and skunk were 
shaped much the same, a trifle more peaked at 
the noses and the measurements larger 
throughout, the boards being thirty inches, 
long, eight across the base and six and a half 
at the shoulders. For small or medium pelts 

these could be scaled down a half-inch for each 
28 


FUR SIGN 


smaller hide. The stretcher for civet and mink 
was made in two parts; a pair of two-inch 
strips of thin board, each tapered very slightly 
on one side and rounded off at the nose. A 
hide cased on these could be stretched very long 
and almost the same width from tail to nose, a 
wedge inserted between the two halves of the 
pattern to take up the slack and to facilitate 
the removal of the board after the pelt had 
been cured. 

“ Now you’ll want to amplify your outfit a 
little,” Kennedy said. “ It’s a dandy as far as 
it goes. But you want a hundred traps in- 
stead of ten. Then each of you can cover a 
separate route, once you’re lined out. Trap- 
ping is like anything else. You have to work 
hard at your job to make good. You’ll want 
a little stove in that tent. Outside cooking is 
all right in weather like this, or any time in a 
pinch, but it’s miserable business to crawl out 
in the morning in two foot of fresh snow and 
get breakfast with the water dripping down 
your neck and into the frying-pan, day after 

day. Lots of your trapping will be creek or 
29 


FUR SIGN 


marsh work, so you’ll both need hip boots. I 
guess that will cover the layout.” 

“ But how can we get all that with only two 
dollars between the pair of us?” Rawhide 
asked. “ It just can’t be done.” 

“ Sounds sort of staggering,” Kennedy ad- 
mitted. “ But it won’t require much of an 
outlay. Those walnuts of yours ought nearly 
to cover the cost. You boys pounce onto col- 
lecting a few more bushels of nuts. I’ve got 
to make a trip to town for supplies and I’ll 
bring a wagon down to the Forks on the way 
and haul the nuts into market. A little later 
I’ll pitch a teepee down at your camp. Right 
now it’s handy to live up here while I’m work- 
ing at Snyder’s hill fences. When the storms 
hit and the grass is snowed under, the stock will 
drift down below the Forks to the bottoms 
where we put up the hay. Then I’ll have to 
stay down there and feed. You better take up 
what traps you’ve got out. We’ll throw out a 
line when the time comes but the fur won’t be 
prime for another ten days.” 

“ Every month with an R,” Rawhide said. 

30 


FUR SIGN 


“ That’s what IVe heard; and this is October. 
Neil came up to see us last night after you left. 
He’s already caught two hundred pelts.” 

“ Then that settles Neil’s case right off,” 
Kennedy stated. “ Fur don’t prime up in this 
country till some time in November. If Neil 
has collected two hundred pelts up to date he’s 
a sooner. No wonder he wants to trap the 
Forks. He’s cleaned the best fur out of his 
own territory before it was prime and now he 
wants to trap yours. A sooner is always a 
hog. Those pelts won’t bring a third what 
they would if caught two weeks later on. 
A good trapper never works his country too 
close but leaves plenty of fur-critters to raise 
another crop for next year. We’ll keep this 
man Neil off the leases. Seems like I’ve cut 
his trail somewheres before but I can’t just 
recollect. There’s all kinds of trappers, the 
most part of them shiftless, but a sooner’s the 
worst of the lot.” 

Just ten days later the two boys sat in the 
tent and waited for Kennedy to come. The 

air was crisp outside but the heat of the stove 
31 


FUR SIGN 


kept the tent snug and warm. The stove was 
a simple contrivance of sheet steel with no 
floor, the bare earth forming the bottom of the 
fire box. It was so constructed that the heat 
was sucked back around the oven. The outfit 
stood complete and Rawhide sighed with satis- 
faction as he viewed it. A hundred traps hung 
on pegs driven into the trunk of the big elm. 
A solid homemade grub chest was generously 
stocked with food. There were two pairs of 
hip boots; two belt axes hung from the tent 
pole and the camp was well stocked with home- 
made furniture; a table with split poles for a 
top, three stools made by sawing cross-sections 
from a ten-inch log and nailing a square board 
on one end ; and a log edging on the ground in 
one corner of the tent to serve as a bunk, this 
filled with ten inches of hay on which to spread 
the bed roll. Fifty casing boards of all sizes 
and patterns were piled against a tree. A 
dozen boxes of shotgun shells and a thousand 
rounds of ammunition for the little rifle were 
stored in the grub chest, for Kennedy had im- 
pressed upon them that both must learn to 
32 


FUR SIGN 


shoot and so live largely “ off the country ” by 
keeping the camp well supplied with meat. 
Their combined assets after marketing the wal- 
nuts had totalled but twenty-four dollars and 
the expenditures had exceeded this amount. 
They were indebted to Jack Kennedy to the 
sum of eight dollars. 

When Kennedy rode up to camp he brought 
his own boots in a sack lashed on behind his 
saddle. In addition he had brought two more 
canvas grain bags. 

“ I fashioned you a pair of trapping sacks,” 
he announced. “ Every trapper ought to tote 
a pack sack to carry his stuff so his hands won’t 
be eternally full of something or other. Each 
of you take ten traps and we’ll make a start. 
One of you bring that duck Rawhide killed last 
night.” 

The canvas sacks had been cut down to a 
trifle less than half-length, leaving a two-inch 
strip of canvas on each side to serve as straps 
and fashioned into shoulder loops. The boys 
loaded up, slipped their arms through the loops 

and followed Kennedy as he headed for the 
33 


FUR SIGN 


North Fork and waded out into the stream. 
Within a few yards of the start Kennedy 
halted and indicated a point at the water line 
under an overhanging grassy bank studded 
with clumps of willows. There was a slight 
excavation at the water’s edge and the roots of 
slough grass and willows were exposed. 

“ That’s where rats have been scratching,” 
he said. “ They come up here and scratch, sit- 
ting half in the water while they clip off a root 
or two. They’ve been feeding for ten feet 
either way from here, but that hollow shows 
more use than the rest. Here’s where we make 
the first set.” 

He cut a smooth willow sapling an inch 
through at the butt and with the first branches 
cropping out midway of its length. He set 
the trap on a flat bed of mud under three inches 
of water, shoved the butt of the willow through 
the ring of the trap chain and pushed it well 
home in the bank a few inches under the water 
line. The branches trailed out in the current 
and were forced under water. 

“ Now that acts as a slide pole,” he said. 

34 


FUR SIGN 


“ It’s the most effective drown-set I know. 
The rat will make for deep water when the trap 
grips his foot. The ring slides down the pole 
till the branches snub it short. That keeps the 
rat from getting out on the bank and in five 
minutes he’s drowned. A muskrat will foot 
himself nine times out of ten if left where he 
can get up on the bank. And this slide pole 
blends in with the other willows dragging out 
in the stream and leaves no sign to help fur 
thieves locate your sets. Now you boys tiy 
and find rat sign and make sets yourselves.” 

A thicket of willows grew on the opposite 
shore of the creek some fifty yards farther up- 
stream. The water line was honeycombed 
with rat workings and the boys located the 
spot. 

“ Good enough,” said Kennedy. “ Might 
as well make two sets along here. The sign 
shows a whole colony of rats are using this wil- 
low-brush patch.” 

Rawhide cut a slide pole and was first to 
complete his set. 

“ Only one thing wrong,” Kennedy said. 

35 


FUR SIGN 


“ The rat will come to the trap from the water, 
not down the bank. Always turn your trap 
with the free jaw toward the side where your 
catch will come in. Your trap’s turned wrong 
side, with the dog toward the creek. If a rat 
stepped in from the side of the pinioned jaw 
it’s likely the dog would throw his foot clear of 
the trap as it flipped up when the spring was 
released.” 

Kennedy peered down into the clear water 
of the stream and examined the bank. He 
pointed to the mouth of a hole that showed 
some eight inches under the water. 

“ Likely that’s the mouth of the den,” he ex- 
plained. “ Bank rats tunnel up from below 
water line. By prospecting those holes with a 
willow you can tell whether they go clear back 
or are only false leads.” 

He cut a slender willow wand and inserted 
the end in the hole. The pliable rod followed 
the curves of the tunnel and was easily thrust 
into the bank for five feet. 

“that’s the entrance,” Kennedy decided. 

“ Buckskin, you smack a trap in that hole.” 

36 


FUR SIGN 


After a little study it was easy to locate rat 
sign, even to tell with fair accuracy whether or 
not it was fresh. Each boy made another set 
within the next hundred yards. Then Ken- 
nedy pointed to a steep bank beneath the roots 
of a mighty elm. A fringe of lacy rootlets 
lapped the water and acted as a screen to con- 
ceal a long narrow shelf under the banl^. 

“ There’s a little shelf runs along behind 
those roots,” Kennedy said. “A sure-fire rat 
set, and any other fur that swims down the 
creek is pretty apt to foUow through it. 
There’s about three inches of water laps over 
the shelf. Plant a trap back in there.” 

Round the next bend a partly submerged 
down-log slanted out of the water. 

“ Notice that rats have been using that log,” 
Kennedy pointed out. “A mink or a coon will 
walk out on it, too, for a rest. We’ll make a 
new kind of a set.” 

He took Rawhide’s hand-ax and chopped a 
notch in the log a few inches below water line, 
motioning the boys back beyond reach of the 

spray. This made a flat bed for the trap and 
37 


FUR SIGN 


he wired the trap chain to an outcropping snag 
well under water. 

There was a flat on the north shore of the 
stream. This pinched out to a narrow bench 
under the higher bank and a dimly defined trail 
threaded this shelf and rounded the roots of a 
giant cottonwood tree. 

“ Most fur, even ’possum and such, follow 
the streams even though they seldom take to 
the water themselves,” Kennedy informed the 
boys. “ They’ll saunter along and at some 
points there’s natural obstacles that crowd 
them into passing over the same route, like ' 
right here. We’ll throw out a bait set now. 
Let’s have that duck.” 

He placed a chunk of log parallel to one of 
the outcropping roots and roofed this lane over 
with slabs of bark from a down-log. The en- 
trails of the duck were placed in the bait pen 
and the rear end solidly blocked. A section of 
three-inch stick was wedged across the mouth 
of the pen and the trap set just behind it so 
that the animal that entered must step over the 

stick and place a foot on the trap pan. The 
38 


FUR SIGN 


chain was wired to the tip end of a ten-foot 
pole. This would serve as a drag and yet have 
sufficient spring to prevent a trapped fur 
bearer from getting a solid pull in his struggles 
to free himself from the trap. Kennedy 
plucked the soft down from the breast of the 
duck and covered the trap to a depth of two 
inches. The stick at the fore end of the pen 
prevented the feathers from blowing away. 
He pulled the stiff wing feathers and scattered 
them near the spot. 

“ The more feathers the better,” he stated. 
“ Even if a critter is up-wind and don’t scent 
the bait he may see the feathers floating about 
and it appears like something has made a kill 
down here under the bank. He’ll wander 
down to have a look and we’ll pinch his toes. 
There’s all kinds of bait sets, but for this coun- 
try the feather set is by all odds the best. Duck 
or fish bait will draw any fur that ranges 
through here. The feathers make soft cover- 
ing and won’t clog the trap like wood rot or 
trash often does.” 

As they proceeded Kennedy explained that 
39 


FUR SIGN 


a hollow down-log made an ideal bait pen if 
dragged to the edge of the stream. Fur bear- 
ers were prone to investigate hollow logs along 
their routes for dormant insects, nests of mice 
or for stray cottontails that might have sought 
shelter inside. A fish or a duck’s head back in 
the hollow and a few feathers floating around 
the mouth would be certain to challenge the in- 
terest of any meat-eater passing that way. 

A windfall log spanned the creek at one 
point and this formed a natural crossing for 
the fur folk. Kennedy chopped a notch in 
which to bed the trap and covered it with thin 
strips of the fibrous inner bark of a dead cot- 
tonwood. 

Some quarter of a mile above camp a 
huge log jam was piled at a bend in the creek. 
The mud flat at its edge was littered with 
tracks. 

“ You want to make a bait set at every log 
jam on the creek,” Kennedy informed. “ Fur 
critters just can’t pass one up without investi- 
gating a bit. Notice how this flat is tracked 
up.” 


40 


FUR SIGN 


He pointed to a track that appeared to be 
the print of a baby’s hand. 

“ That’s a coon track, and a big one, too. 
This line of tracks looks a trifle similar, only 
more straggling, the toes spread well apart sort 
of star shaped and more like bird claws. That’s 
the trail of a ’possum. A smashing big skunk 
has been down for a drink. Notice his oblong 
pads, pinching off rounded at the heel, and his 
long claws overreaching in front. This track 
is exactly the same, only about one-third the 
size. That’s a civet. These trails that look 
like they might be made by frogs were left by 
muskrats out prowling round in the mud. See 
where their tails dragged now and then. 
Here’s mink track, but it’s old. Their toe 
prints show up like a cat animal’s, only spread 
farther apart. You want to learn every track 
in the hills and right here’s a good place to be- 
gin. Every kind of fur in the woods has vis- 
ited this log jam in the last couple of weeks.” 

The bait set at this point took the last of the 
traps. 

“ That’ll be all for to-day,” Kennedy stated. 

41 


FUR SIGN 


“ I’ve showed you some of the best kind of sets 
and now you’ll have to work things out for 
yourselves. You’ll catch fur to-night and to- 
morrow I’ll show you how to skin out and 
handle your catch. If a hide is worth trap- 
ping at all it deserves a good job of handling. 
Every scrap of fat must come off. If you 
leave it on it grease-burns the pelt. Even if 
they don’t heat, a bunch of fat hides won’t 
bring much over half on the market as what 
they would if they’d been clean-fleshed on the 
start.” 

That night seemed overlong and both boys 
waked many times and wondered how soon the 
dawn would come. They were out with the 
first streak of light and elected to run the trap 
line before breakfasting. 

Rawhide stooped to examine the first set. 
The light was dim but sufficient to enable him 
to determine that the trap was gone from its 
bed. 

“ It’s gone,” he said. “ I can’t see it any- 
where.” 

Buckskin seized the slide pole and lifted the 
42 


FUR SIGN 


submerged branches from the water. The trap 
chain hung straight down with a weight at the 
end of it. There would be many thrills in the 
life of each boy but few that could equal the 
tingle of joy that flooded their souls at lifting 
that first drowned muskrat from the Clear- 
water. 

The trap was reset and they waded on to the 
willow thicket above. Rawhide’s set and the 
trap in the under-water hole each held a rat. 
The third was unspmng. 

“ We’ve made a bigger catch than I’d ex- 
pected even if we don’t get another rat,” Buck- 
skin exulted. “ This is catching fur right! ” 

There was no fur in the next few sets before 
reaching the watery shelf behind the lacy root- 
lets under the elm. This trap, too, was gone. 

“Another rat,” Rawhide stated as he lifted 
the slide pole and caught the chain. 

“That’s no rat!” Buckskin exclaimed. 
“ It’s got a bushy tail. It’s a squirrel.” 

Rawhide nearly dropped his catch back into 
the stream as he discovered its species. 

“Mink!” he said. “That’s what it is. 

43 


FUR SIGN 


That hide is worth four or five rats. If this 
keeps up we’ll have all the fur in the country in 
the first day’s catch.” 

The set on the partially submerged log was 
untouched and the bait trap under the roots of 
the big cottonwood was also undisturbed. An- 
other rat had been added to the load in the pack 
sacks when they reached the down-log span- 
ning the creek. A big opossum prowled back 
and forth on the log, his foot fast in the trap. 
One more rat was the yield of the two traps 
between that point and the log jam. Buck- 
skin gripped his friend’s arm as they neared 
this last set. 

“ What’s that? ” he demanded. 

Some black thing moved on the bank where 
the bait pen had been constructed, at the edge 
of the log jam. 

“ Skunk,” Rawhide announced. “ We’ve 
got him. He’s worth two dollars, that fellow, 
if he’s worth a cent.” 

But the skunk was worth far more than that. 
He was a huge old boar, as black as a crow ex- 
cept for a forked spot of white on his head. 

44 


FUR SIGN 


“A split-cap,” Buckskin said as they gazed 
at the prize. “A black skunk, sure enough ! ” 
A shot from the twenty-two finished the 
skunk. An hour later the boys were back in 
camp. A mink, a ’possum, a skunk and six 
rats were arranged in a row on a down-log and 
the boys waited for Kennedy to come and show 
them how to handle their catch. 


45 


Ill 


T3 AWHIDE crouched in a blind fashioned 
in the tall grass that flanked the pond, 
waiting for the first morning light. The whir 
of unseen pinions sounded all about him, the 
soft wing whistles of slow-flying ducks and the 
hissing screech of speedsters hurtling by. A 
sheet of water stretched away for a hundred 
yards and a dozen decoys bobbed on the surface 
of the pond some little distance from his blind. 
He gripped the shotgun as a flock of redheads 
tumbled into the water beyond the decoys. 

The sky turned rose in the east and he saw a 
dark moving streak against its glow as a flock 
of mallards headed for the big marsh a mile 
farther down the stream. The pond was a 
half-mile below camp and the bottoms had 
widened out, with flat hay meadows extending 
back into the narrow breaks between outcrop- 
ping spurs of the Flint Hills. The stream be- 
46 


FUR SIGN 


low the Forks flowed smoothly between grassy 
shores free of timber except for numerous 
thickets of willow. The shadows lifted and 
Rawhide could see the dark shapes that were 
mounds of hay in Brown’s stack-yards. Ducks 
streaked in all directions across the sky and a 
squadron of great gray geese honked overhead. 
The big flight of the season was on. 

The boy ducked convulsively as fifty blue- 
bills hurtled just above the grass tops all about 
his head and were gone before he could shoot. 
A dark line of redheads swept over the pond, 
wheeled into the wind with set wings and 
slanted down for the decoys. He fired at the 
thickest mass of birds and the flock held 
straight on at the jarring report. He shot 
twice again as they left. One bird sagged un- 
der the rest, gave up the struggle and struck 
the water with a splash on the far side of the 
pond. Two drakes floated dead just outside 
the decoys. 

He crammed more shells into the magazine 
as a cloud of ducks wheeled over the pond, 

swung away and circled again. These acted 
47 


FUR SIGN 


in an entirely different manner from the red- 
heads. At the first report they scattered and 
climbed, some with wings spread fiat against 
the wind to retard their advance toward the 
blind. He fired three more shots without 
making a kill. 

Rawhide had yet to learn that different 
species of ducks adopt various tactics ; that can- 
vasbacks, bluebills and redheads will seldom 
scatter or dodge at a shot, but hold straight on 
their course, while mallards will scatter and 
climb. A compact bunch of speeding teal will 
disperse like a puff of smoke with a shot ; and 
so on, all the way down through the species. 

Black swarms rose from the hay land and 
the big marsh below. A flock screeched over 
the pond, circling it twice as if to diminish their 
speed, and headed straight for the blind. They 
wheeled gi’acefully and he fired as they made 
the turn. The bottom seemed to drop from 
the flock and as the heavy bodies splashed on 
the surface he poured four shots after the van- 
ishing birds. There were four canvasbacks 
down on the pond, three from the first lucky 


FUR SIGN 


shot on the turn and but one lone duck brought 
to bag by the other four shots. Rawhide fired 
another dozen shells and dropped but three 
more ducks, then waded out into the pond and 
picked up his ten birds. 

He reached camp before the fiery ball of the 
sun swung above the Flint Hills. Buckskin 
had the morning meal prepared and after 
breakfasting they set forth to run their sepa- 
rate trap lines. Kennedy had mapped out a 
tentative route for each of them. Rawhide’s 
line followed the North Fork for five miles up- 
stream, then swung away from the creek and 
back through the open Flint Hills to the south 
of it. Thus he traveled in a loop and avoided 
a waste of time by covering any of the same 
ground twice. Buckskin’s line was laid out a 
like distance up the South Fork, his back trip 
also leading down through the hills between the 
two streams, their two routes converging a mile 
above camp at the far edge of the timbered 
flat. 

Rawhide had found fewer rat signs as the 

timber thickened up on the bank, only isolated 
49 


FUR SIGN 


colonies scattered along. He had made sets 
at these but for the most part he bait-trapped. 
Every log jam was a site for a bait pen and he 
had become adept in building these little 
structures so they blended in with surround- 
ings. He had dragged hollow logs to the 
water’s edge at points where broad flats 
pinched out to narrow shelves under the bank 
and so made natural leads for fur bearers to 
follow. At one of these points the bank was 
littered with mink tracks and there were fish 
scales padded thick in the mud. A smoothly 
worn hole showed in the bank two feet above 
water line and there was a similar entrance a 
foot under water. He had placed a trap in 
each of these, knowing the spot for a mink den. 
The family had long since departed on its 
travels and for three days the traps had re- 
mained undisturbed. But this fact had not 
brought discouragement, for Rawhide had al- 
ready learned much of the ways of fur animals, 
some little from his own observations but 
mainly from inquiring of Kennedy. He knew 

that the mink was a traveler and that he fol- 
50 


FUR SIGN 


lowed a regular route. Where once he found 
fresh mink sign it was certain that the animal 
would eventually return; it might be in five 
days or it might be in ten, according to the 
length of his route, but unless picked up by a 
trap at some other part of his circle he would 
surely be back. Also mink sometimes traveled 
in groups and where he caught one he stood a 
good chance to find others fast in near-by traps. 
Therefore, Rawhide held high hopes regarding 
these mink sets a mile above camp. 

His pack sack contained an opossum and 
two rats when he reached the spot. There 
were fresh mink tracks on the bank both ways 
from the old den and the trap was gone from 
the water set. Rawhide’s heart beat rapidly 
as he lifted the sagging tip of the slide pole 
from the water and a sickening shock of dis- 
appointment flooded him as he found the trap 
empty. 

There was a brown patch midway of the 
jaws, showing in distinct relief against the 
greenish secretion which the water had spread 

over the balance of the trap. 

51 


FUR SIGN 


“ Had him for a minute, anyway,” he said. 
“ But he pulled out of the trap.” 

A rat set some twenty yards along the shore 
had also made a catch. 

“ Likely I’ve got him here,” Rawhide said 
as he lifted the slide pole. 

This trap too was empty. 

“ These minks are hard to hold,” he la- 
mented. “ That’s a tough blow, having two 
break away.” 

It did not occur to him that an animal so 
securely gripped as to leave a mark where its 
leg had worn through the greenish erosion on 
the metal was incapable of extracting the mem- 
ber without leaving evidence in the shape of a 
foot or at least a few severed toes. 

The remaining four miles of his creek route 
yielded only one opossum but there was one 
other trap from which some fur animal had 
made good its escape. 

“ Strange how it runs like that,” Rawhide 
mused. “ One day you’ll hold every catch, 
and the jiext day the biggest part pull out of 
the traps.” 


52 


FUR SIGN 


Near the upper end of his line a bait set 
in the end of a hollow log had made a catch. 
The soft dirt had been torn up for three feet in 
all directions by the prisoner’s struggles to 
escape. There was a splotch of fresh blood 
near the shore line but this was almost obliter- 
ated by the action of water that had been 
splashed across it. The trap lay in the edge of 
the creek but the mark where the jaws had 
gripped the animal’s leg was still evident and a 
few matted hairs still adhered to the metal. 

“ It was a big coon,” Rawhide said. ‘‘ And 
he’s not been gone long. That blood is right 
fresh. He must have taken a dive in the creek 
when he broke the trap’s hold. That’s the rea- 
son he didn’t leave a track in the mud to show 
where he went. He kicked about a barrel of 
water behind him when he landed and it nearly 
washed that blood off the bank.” 

Thus Rawhide read the signs. He was be- 
ginning to learn. But there was one prowler 
whose sign he failed to take into account, a 
creature who has no special range but whose 

habitat includes all countries where traps are 
63 


FUR SIGN 


set out for the fur bearers. His name is Fur 
Thief and his numbers are legion. 

Rawhide took up the trap and deposited it 
with others which he carried in his pack sack 
for the purpose of making sets at any fresh 
sign along his route. He swung aside from 
the creek, traversed the quarter-mile strip of 
timber that flanked it, and came out into the 
grass-covered Flint Hills. There were scat- 
tered patches of trees at the heads of the 
gulches. These marked the sites of sidehill 
seeps and below them were trickling spring 
runs that meandered through the narrow bot- 
toms. 

Kennedy had explained that out in these 
hills he would And skunk dens and that all sorts 
of fur animals would seek the open country at 
night. Opossums, civets and skunks would be 
on the hunt for insects, ground squirrels and 
mice. Raccoons would prospect the spring 
holes for crawfish and minks would follow the 
course of the spring runs. Small colonies of 
rats would be using the marshy expanses. 

He visited two bait sets in patches of timber 
54 


FUR SIGN 


without making a catch. The next trap had 
been set in the mouth of a skunk den and 
lightly covered with trash. A big short-stripe 
skunk was waiting for him. Two narrow pin- 
strijDes of white branched away from the white 
spot on the animals head and forked back to 
the shoulders. For the rest the pelt was crow 
black. Rawhide killed the prize and swung 
the animal at the end of a pole which he carried 
across his shoulder to avoid scenting his cloth- 
ing with the strong musk of the species. 

The next den set was unsprung but Rawhide 
had also learned something of the habit of 
skunks and he did not remove the trap. He 
knew that the mere fact of having failed to 
make a catch was no indication that the den 
was deserted. Skunks do not travel widely, 
as do minks, but instead hold largely to the 
home range, holing up in groups that some- 
times number a dozen individuals in one den. 
At this season of year, when the nights are 
cold and the animals have put on their heavy 
layers of fat for the lean winter months, skunks 

prowl abroad only irregularly. Rawhide 
55 


FUR SIGN 


knew that there might be one or two animals 
still using the den but that the inclination to 
rove had failed to operate the preceding night. 
Perhaps on the next they would feel the urge 
to prowl and he would find one in the trap. 

A narrow-stripe skunk rewarded him at the 
next den set and he found a civet in a bait trap. 
His load was proving burdensome so he halted 
and skinned out a part of his catch. He swung 
wide to either side of his course to prospect for 
new sets. Two narrow trails, padded through 
a weed patch on a sandy knoll, led him to a 
skunk den and he made a set in the mouth of it. 
Later he found a sand-bar along a spring run. 
This had been tracked up by a coon. Clam 
shells and the remains of crawfish were scat- 
tered on the bar and he knew that the animal 
had repaired to this spot to wash his food before 
dining. Kennedy had explained this trait of 
the coon. Rawhide essayed a new sort of set. 
He placed a trap in the shallow riffle of the 
spring run, a piece of bright tin clamped on 
the pan. This would glitter and flash in the 
moonlight as the water rippled over it and 
56 


FUR SIGN 


would challenge the curiosity of any stray coon 
passing by. Rawhide bagged an opossum in 
a bait set and two rats along the spring 
branches before reaching the end of his line. 

Buckskin was in camp before him and they 
set about preparing their catch. They had 
learned to case their pelts by making a 
straight clean cut from the heel of one hind foot 
across to the opposite heel, a shorter incision 
at right angles, leading from the center of this 
original opening to the root of the tail. 
Through this one orifice the hide was peeled off 
wrong side out and skinned clear to the lips. 

Rawhide set about fleshing out a skunk pelt. 
A short pole some three inches in diameter had 
been rounded off on one end with a wood rasp. 
He slid the pelt over this with the flesh side out. 
A strip of canvas served as an apron to keep 
the grease from his clothing as he rested the 
nose of the hide against his body while the far 
end of the pole was braced against the ground 
at the base of a tree. He gripped a steel skate 
in both hands, the runner blade resting on the 
nose of the skunk pelt, and pushed away with 
67 


FUR SIGN 


short strokes. The flat edge of the skate 
scraped off the fat in rolls without injuring the 
pelt and this was worked back toward the rear 
end of the hide. 

As the pelts were stretched on the casing 
boards they were hung up in the shade of a 
tarpaulin rigged between two trees. Kennedy 
had explained that fur must be dried in the 
shade; that the sun blackened even j)rime hides 
of mink, possum and skunk which should cure 
out flint white on the flesh side of the skin; 
prime rats should cure out a yellowish red but 
these too were turned black when sun-dried. 

Buckskin had netted a huge raccoon and this 
piece of fur was skinned open by slitting the 
under parts from tail to chin and running an 
incision at right angles along the under side of 
each leg. Rawhide cut some light willow poles 
and fashioned a frame four feet square. The 
coon hide was spread flat in the center of this 
hollow frame. A sacking needle was threaded 
with heavy twine and one whole side of the 
skin was caught at intervals of one inch, the 

stitches looping round the pole of the frame. 

58 


FUR SIGN 


The other side and both ends of the pelt were 
similarly sewed to their respective sides of the 
rack. Then the looj)s were drawn tight by 
taking up the slack. This lacing constituted a 
pliable stretching apparatus of great sensitive- 
ness, for any strain could be eased off at one 
point while exerting increased pressure at 
others. The hide was stretched in a perfect 
square, as tight as a drum, and the lacing 
frame placed on edge in the shade of the can- 
vas tarp. 

Kennedy had pitched his teepee near the tent 
and he rode into camp while the boys still 
worked at their catch. He sat on a down-log 
and watched their operations with interest. 

‘‘ You’re getting to be old heads at that 
work,” he praised. “ That’s a good clean- 
fleshed bunch of fur you’ve got hanging there. 
Come another season and you’ll be showing me 
new tricks, you two.” 

“ Neil doesn’t bother to flesh his hides very 
clean,” Buckskin remarked. “ We were down 
to his camp a few days ago. He says it doesn’t 

pay for the time it takes up.” 

59 


FUR SIGN 


“ Neil is like the main run of trappers,” 
Kennedy said. “ Only worse. First off he’s a 
sooner and traps out his territory before fur 
primes up. That knocks his prices in half. 
Then he’s too lazy to flesh his pelts and that 
cuts into his returns again. When the weather 
turns off cold and fur stuff holes up and don’t 
prowl outside much — why then Neil, he’ll 
hole up too. He won’t work hard at a trap 
line that only nets one or two pelts a day. 
That don’t seem like much but the aggi'egate 
at the end of a month counts up big. If you 
boys work hard after the freeze-up you’ll 
knock off right at forty to fifty pelts in a 
month, and he won’t. That’s where most trap- 
pers fail. They overlook those little points. 
This Neil is poor sort of folks.” 

“ He still angles around to make a deal so 
we’ll let him trap on the Forks,” Buckskin 
said. “ If his country is all trapped out why 
don’t he move camp? ” 

“ There’s some trapper or other working 
most every part of the Flint Hills,” Kennedy 

said. “ He’ll be bumping into some other out- 
60 


FUR SIGN 


fit’s territory whenever he shifts; so now he 
wants to work yours. I run across him a few 
days back down below. He’s not the Neil I 
had him figured to be, but about the same sort. 
There was a layout of Neils holding out down 
in the Santag Swamp, about forty miles below 
where the Clearwater dumps into the Santag 
River. That would be around fifty miles from 
here. Folks got down on them, sort of, and 
they pulled out for the West. When he was 
telling you about his folks in Wyoming I im- 
agined it was one of those Neils that had come 
sauntering back, but this fellow’s not one of the 
lot.” 

Rawhide was dumping the odds and ends 
from his trap sack as Kennedy inspected the 
freshly stretched coon skin. 

“ That’s a good job of lacing,” he praised. 
“ It’s the best job of stretching you’ve done on 
a coon up to date.” 

Rawhide held up a trap. 

“ We’d have had another to stretch if this 
fellow hadn’t pulled out,” he stated. 

Kennedy idly inspected the trap, noting the 
61 


FUR SIGN 


few clinging hairs and the mark on the jaws 
where the animal’s leg had been gripped. 

“ He tore up the bank all around,” Rawhide 
went on. “ Left the ground smeared with 
blood, then pulled out and took to the creek 
without leaving a track in the mud. I lost two 
mink too. The traps just hung empty out at 
the end of the slide pole but the mink had 
pulled out.” 

“ Hum,” Kennedy said. “ There’s one 
thing about a slide-pole set. A critter can’t 
get a solid pull on that rubbery willow tip any 
more than he could on a fish rod. Any time a 
trap gets enough of a hold on a mink so that 
he can drag it the length of the slide pole out 
into deep water he’s a drowned mink, that’s 
all ! A coon that’s gripped high enough to stay 
in a trap till he’s torn up the bank all around 
isn’t apt to pull free without leaving at least a 
few toes. A trapped fur bearer don’t shed any 
blood till you arrive and kill him by a blow on 
the head; then he always bleeds at the nose.” 

Kennedy took a squint at the sun and found 
it three hours high. 


62 


FUR SIGN 


“ Let’s have a look at that spot,” he sug- 
gested. “ There’s a new kind of critter prowl- 
ing your line. We’d better ride, for it’s a good 
piece from here and we won’t make it by sun- 
down if we go afoot. I’ll run Warrior in and 
rig up a rope hackamore. You can straddle 
him bareback.” 

An hour later they waded into the stream 
at the point where the coon had escaped. Ken- 
nedy carefully studied the sign. 

“A fur thief helped your coon to break 
loose,” he informed. “ He got your mink too. 
He splashed water all over the bank to wash 
off the blood but he did a poor job. It’s two 
to one that Neil is the fur snatcher that is do- 
ing this work.” 

“ But his camp is several miles down below,” 
Rawhide objected. 

“ It doesn’t matter where a man’s camp is if 
he’s out to steal fur,” Kennedy stated. 

He led the way downstream, examining 
the bottoms of the shallows. At last he 
pointed to a boot print under six inches of 
water. 


63 


FUR SIGN 


“ Notice the non-slip pattern on the sole of 
that boot is different from the tracks your 
boots leave,” he instructed. 

The print was dim and partially filled in 
with a thin film of sediment but the difference 
in the sole pattern was apparent. 

“ That's Neil’s track,” Kennedy stated. “ I 
noticed his boot soles a few days back, just in 
case the information might come in handy 
sometime.” 

“ But I should think we’d have met him 
somewhere before now if he’s running our 
lines,” Rawhide argued. 

“ He doesn’t work it that way,” Kennedy 
answered. “ He could strike the creek a mile 
above camp at daylight and work it upstream. 
Even if you started when he did he would still 
have a mile lead on you and he’d move right 
along. He’s in the creek all the way and out 
of your sight. Likely he doesn’t run your 
sets out in the open hill country. You might 
sight him and he’d be sure to leave sign. Prob- 
ably he just runs your creek sets where he can 

work from the water, then swings off south and 
64 


FUR SIGN 


circles back to his camp. Have you been miss- 
ing other catches of late? ” 

“ About two days ago,” Rawhide recalled. 
“ There were three sprung traps on their slide 
poles and something had pulled out of a trap 
on a down-log that bridges the creek. Then 
the same thing happened a couple of days be- 
fore that, and one day last week I lost several 
catches.” 

“ He works on your line every two days, 
likely,” Kennedy said. It would be interest- 
ing to know what happened on Buckskin’s line 
on the off days between.” 

It transpired that Buckskin too had missed 
many catches but attributed the loss to natural 
causes. Now that the theft had been fastened 
on Neil both boys were ineensed to the point 
where their only wish was to raid Neil’s camp 
and recover their fur without an hour’s delay. 
The three friends held a council of war round 
a camp fire that had been kindled between the 
tent and the teepee. 

“ Neil shipped all his fur two weeks back,” 

Buckskin said. “ Most of what he’s got on 
65 


FUR SIGN 


hand now is ours. I’m for going down right 
to-night and getting it back.” 

“ Let’s go,” Rawhide seconded. “ I’m 
ready right now.” 

Kennedy laid a hand on his shoulder. 

‘‘ Calm down. Son,” he counseled. ‘‘ Let 
your hair settle back on your scalp. We’ll 
break even with Neil and maybe a little ahead; 
but right now we haven’t any shred of i^roof 
except a boot print under the water and the 
fact that a few traps have missed fire. If we 
raid his camp in the open he’d have us all 
tossed into jail. We’ll trip him up in the 
morning and plan to get our fur back while 
he’s out on his rounds. We’ll map out a re- 
turn steal. Ordinarily I’m not up to that sort 
of thing but the way to handle a fur thief is 
just any old way that will get good results. 
I’ve got a scheme in mind that will leave him 
guessing as to whether or not it was us that 
took the fur from his camp.” 

“ I don’t want him to do any guessing,” 
Rawhide asserted. “ I want him to know for 

sure. The fur’s ours and he stole it — and I 
OG 


FUR SIGN 


want him to be right certain that we got it 
back.” 

“ All right; then later we’ll tell him,” Ken- 
nedy said. “ But up until trapping season is 
over it won’t do any harm to have him consid- 
erable worried. Then he won’t have so much 
time to put in worrying us. You all turn in 
for the night and to-morrow we’ll clamp down 
on Neil.” 


67 


IV 


T3 AWHIDE whistled cheerily as he 
neared Neil’s camp. He had left War- 
rior tethered a quarter of a mile back in the 
timber, having ridden through the wooded 
hills south of the Clearwater to reach the spot 
unobserved. If he should find Neil in camp 
it was his purpose to stop and visit for an hour ; 
an act which would seem natural enough. 
Should he find the camp unoccupied he would 
simply wait. There was no answering call 
from the tent when he hailed the camp. Neil 
was gone. 

He entered the tent and inspected the fur 
suspended from the tent pole, — an assortment 
of some sixty pelts, most of them cured but a 
few still drying on the stretchers. Rawhide 
moved to the edge of the trees and sat on a 
down-log. His eyes were trained on the bald 
point of a sandstone knob some seven miles up 

the country. From that point would come the 
68 


FUR SIGN 


signal which would determine his course. His 
mind was occupied with speculations concern- 
ing the activities of his two friends back in 
camp. 

At that precise moment Buckskin and Ken- 
ned}^ were concealed in a thicket of hazel brush 
which afforded a clear view of a section of the 
creek where the low flat jj^anks would not fur- 
nish sufficient cover 'to screen any one wading 
the stream. If Neil should elect to run Buck- 
skin’s line he must pass this point, a spot some 
four miles above camp. They had been sta- 
tioned there for the best part of an hour, ever 
since the first light of day. 

Battler rose from beside them and Kennedy 
laid a restraining hand on the big Airedale’s 
head as the dog made a move toward the edge 
of the thicket. 

“ Down, Battler,” he commanded. “ You 
stay right here.” 

The dog flattened down once more but his 
nose quivered eagerly as he tested the wind 
that drifted from the creek. A soft growl 
rumbled in his throat. 

69 


FUR SIGN 


Kennedy touched Buckskin’s arm and 
pointed. A man’s hat appeared above the 
bank of the creek. It disappeared behind a 
clump of trees but after the lapse of a minute 
it came into view once more as the wearer ap- 
proached the low flat bank. The man pro- 
gressed another fifty yards upstream and the 
watchers could see all of Neil from his knees 
up. Again he disappeared behind high tim- 
bered banks. 

The two stalkers moved out of the hazel 
thicket and angled swiftly across a bend in the 
creek. Battler’s hackle fur fluffed into a roach 
on his shoulders and Kennedy slipped a short 
rope through his collar to prevent the dog from 
making any sudden rush toward the spot from 
whence came Neil’s scent. The two stationed 
themselves on the bank upstream from the fur 
thief and sauntered down to meet him. Ken- 
nedy slipped the rope when the splash of boots 
in the water announced that Neil was but a 
few yards downstream. 

The Airedale dashed ahead and came out on 
the bank a few feet from Neil, his teeth bared 
70 



THE WATCHERS COULD SEE ALL OF NEAL. Page 70 . 





FUR SIGN 


at the man in the stream. Buckskin and Ken- 
nedy hastened toward the sound of his snarls 
and halted as if in surprise at the sight of Neil. 

“Hello,” Kennedy hailed, “Battler! 
You! Come back here! We thought he’d 
treed a coon or something from the noise he 
was making,” he explained to Neil. “ He 
won’t jump you, now that he’s recognized you 
for a friend.” 

Neil’s composure was returning with this 
evidence that the two on the bank had discov- 
ered him through accident and apparently 
failed to suspect his activities. 

“ He give me a start,” he confessed. “ I 
had just come down across the hills and hadn’t 
no more’n stepped into the creek when he 
bounced out an’ bellowed right in my face. I 
stayed all night over at Newt Martin’s camp 
across on the Otter Fork and started back be- 
fore daylight. I was aiming to drop by your 
camp on the way down.” 

“ Come right along,” Kennedy invited. 
“ We haven’t breakfasted yet ourselves. 
Three nights hand-running we’ve heard a wolf 
71 


FUR SIGN 


howl up in here — first I’ve heard in the Flint 
Hills for close onto five years — so we turned 
out to see if we could get a shot at daylight. 
Rawhide cut across to run a part of his traps 
on the way down and we moved off across here. 
Come on and mosey back with us and we’ll stir 
up a bite to eat.” 

Neil was entirely reassured by this rambling 
explanation and he stepped out on the bank. 

‘‘ Don’t bother to run your line down to 
camp,” Kennedy said to Buckskin. ‘‘ Why 
don’t you swing back in the open and try to 
knock down a couple of chickens on the way 
in? ” 

Buckskin departed with the shotgun. He 
knew that Kennedy would keep to the bottoms 
where the timber obscured the view, and once 
out of sight he sprinted for the point of a lofty 
sandstone knob half a mile away. He knelt 
on the summit and touched a match to a pile 
of dry weeds which he had placed there before 
daylight. 

Miles down the bottoms, Rawhide sat on a 

log and waited. He consulted his watch. In 
72 


FUR SIGN 


another thirty minutes he would leave and go 
back to his horse. He started from his seat 
and peered anxiously at the smnmit of the dis- 
tant knob. It seemed that a fine line of white 
smoke rose from it but he could not be sure. 
Then the column deepened in shade and he 
knew it for smoke. 

Rawhide hastened back to Neil’s tent and 
swiftly stripped the green fur from the casing 
boards. He packed these into a canvas grain 
sack which he carried, added the pelts already 
cured and headed swiftly for his horse, then 
lashed the sack on behind his saddle, mounted 
and made off through the wooded hills south 
of the creek, holding the horse to a stiff trot. 
In less than an hour he drew abreast of his 
own camp at the Forks and stationed himself 
in the timber a quarter of a mile up the slope 
that broke up from the South Fork. Pres- 
ently the ringing strokes of an ax reached his 
ears, prearranged evidence that Kennedy was 
back in camp with Neil. 

Pie headed Warrior along the slope, angled 

down and forded the South Fork half a mile 
73 


FUR SIGN 


above camp and rode straight through the 
heavy timber of the flat to the bank of the 
North Fork. Kennedy’s saddle was stripped 
from Warrior and the little bay horse was left 
free to graze. Rawhide cached both the sack 
of fur and the saddle in a windfall jam, slipj)ed 
off Kennedy’s moccasins, which he had worn to 
avoid leaving the least sight around Neil’s 
camp, and donned his own boots. These, along 
with his trap-sack, had been planted at this 
spot by Kennedy. The trap-sack was heavy 
and he found that it contained two rats and a 
possum. Buckskin and Kennedy had run a 
few sets near camp before daylight to lend a 
touch of reality to Rawhide’s return from the 
trap line. He followed the bank to a point 
near the camp, then took to the stream and 
came out over the bank when abreast of the 
tent. Buckskin had beat him to camp by not 
over ten minutes and had three plump prairie 
hens to show for the morning’s hunt. The re- 
turn of Kennedy and Neil had not exceeded 
his own by more than half an hour. 

“ Not much of a catch,” Rawhide stated, 
U 


FUR SIGN 


dumping the two rats and the possum from the 
pack sack. “ But I didn’t cover much of my 
line.” 

Neil jerked a thumb at his own sack. 

“ I’ve got a few critters in there,” he said. 
“ Picked them up last evening in some traps 
I’ve got out on the ridges ; took ’em out on my 
way over to Martin’s but didn’t bother to peel 
’em last night. I’ll have to hustle back to camp 
right after breakfast and snatch the pelts off 
them before they spoil.” 

Rawhide knew that the contents of Neil’s 
pack sack had been lifted from their own trap 
line that morning but he was content to see the 
fur thief depart with his spoils when he re- 
flected uj3on that sack of fur cached in the 
windfall. 

Neil departed immediately after breakfast. 

“ There he goes,” Kennedy observed, gazing 
after him, “ congratulating himself on what a 
blind outfit we are. There’s a hard jolt wait- 
ing him when he gets back and finds his fur 
> gone. He won’t be able to figure how any of 

us had a hand in raiding his camp.” 

75 


FUR SIGN 


Two days later they heard that Neil had 
broken camp and moved out, announcing his 
destination as the Santag Swamp. 

“ It looks like he might be one of that Neil 
outfit that used to hang out do’wn there,” Ken- 
nedy remarked when he heard this news. 
“ But I never saw him around with them.” 

The stream below the Forks was too deep 
for wading at many points and Kennedy had 
hauled in lumber for the construction of a row- 
boat. They put the finishing touches on the 
boat on the day that the news of NeiFs depar- 
ture reached them. The muskrats had been 
well thinned out on the Forks and out on the 
spring runs and the boys pulled up their rat 
traps preparatory to working the main Clear- 
water below, leaving only some forty bait sets 
and den traps up country for other fur. They 
set off downstream with sixty traps in the 
boat. At this point the Clearwater wandered 
through flat hay meadows, its shores lined with 
matted patches of slough grass and jungles of 
willows. Small biTish-covered islands studded 
its course. 


76 


FUR SIGN 


This stretch was a veritable muskrat para- 
dise and every rod of shore line was littered 
with sign. They trapped the north bank 
downstream, working the near side of every 
island en route, and covered the south bank on 
the up trip, each one taking his turn at the 
oars while the other put out traps. 

“ .You’ll make some heavy catches of rats 
down there,” Kennedy predicted on their re- 
turn. “ One point of good trapping is to work 
your territory after a system that will bring 
best results on the whole. First you cleaned 
out the scattering rats up above. Now you can 
concentrate on those below the Forks and trap 
out the thickest of them before the freeze-up. 
It’s hard trapping for bank rats after the ice 
takes. The big marsh is swarming with musk- 
rats but we’ll pass them up for now. You can 
trap marsh rats after the ice sets in so we’ll re- 
serve them till later on. This way you’ll do 
better than if you’d slapped down traps hap- 
hazard on the start.” 

Kennedy had impressed upon them the ne- 
cessity of properly arranging their work to 
77 


FUR SIGN 


avoid doubling and so wasting a part of their 
time. Buckskin covered the lower rat lines in 
the boat while Rawhide took over all the bait 
sets up country. In this latter work Rawhide 
found that he could cover far more territory 
when mounted on Warrior than when trap- 
ping on foot. He increased his range to ex- 
tend two miles farther up the open hills be- 
tween the Forks, then exjDlored the wooded 
ridges on the far side of the South Fork. This 
last investigation was rewarded by the discov- 
ery of several skunk and possum dens under 
the soapstone ledges. He also found two 
mighty trees, one a sycamore and the other an 
elm, hollow well toward the tops and used as 
den trees by coons. He made bait sets near 
these, using the method Kennedy had told him 
was often employed in winter trapping for 
foxes. There were many spring pools that 
never froze over in winter, their overflow car- 
ried off by tiny streams that trickled from 
their lower extremities. He chose one of these 
and wired a duck to a rock, placing it in the 

center of the pool. A trap was set midway 
78 


FUR SIGN 


between the bait and the bank, the shallow 
water just covering the jaws, while a tuft of 
moss was secured to the trap pan and this rose 
above the surface, forming an inviting spot 
upon which to step as an animal neared the 
bait. The jaws were draped by shreds of the 
stringy green moss that had formed in the 
pool. A similar set was made on the far side 
of the bait. 

It was on this same day that Battler struck 
some sort of a trail well back among the hills 
and commenced working it out. Rawhide fol- 
lowed on Warrior, hoping that the dog would 
lead him to some den tree or a hole in the 
ledges. Rawhide had come to know that the 
Airedale’s nose was infallible. On half a 
dozen nights he had disappeared from camp. 
Later his voice had drifted back to them as he 
bayed at the foot of some tree which held his 
prey. The boys had never failed to take the 
lantern and hasten to the point, and there were 
pelts of civet, possum and coon to show that 
Battler never lied when he bawled the news 

that his prey was treed. 

79 


FUR SIGN 


Battler stopped on the crest of a ridge and 
gazed off across the country. As Rawhide 
peered off in the same direction he saw a man 
cross between two strips of timber. The 
stranger was undersized, almost dwarfed, and 
waddled on short bandy legs as he walked. 
Rawhide attached no special significance to 
this occurrence and called Battler from the 
track. 

Rawhide’s rounds yielded fewer pelts than 
at first, for muskrats, easiest of all fur to trap, 
had been cleaned out along the upper lines 
to the limit which Kennedy considered advis- 
able. The old man never failed to impress 
upon the boys the fact that a good trapper 
never traps his territory too closely. But 
by working hard and riding for new sets every 
day he never failed to bring in some fur. 
Civet, possum and skunk, an occasional mink 
or raccoon, all these helped swell the growing 
assortment of fur in camp. Day after day 
Buckskin brought in heavy catches of musk- 
rats from the line below the Forks. 

A vast content filled the hearts of both 
80 


FUR SIGN 


boys. Already their catch exceeded all their 
highest anticipations for the first year’s 
work. 

Rawhide was obsessed with the hope of at- 
taining one spot on the earth which he might 
call his own, — the ambition for ownership. 
He had seen much of poverty and had ob- 
served that those who worked from day to day 
with no thought of saving for the morrow were 
always harassed by a swarm of petty appre- 
hensions; fear of losing their jobs; uneasiness 
lest the next week’s pay check would not cover 
all that they desired to purchase; collectors 
ever at their doors. In his observations it had 
occurred to him that people who were owners 
suffered no such afflictions. One day he would 
have a piece of land stocked with horses and 
cows of his own. And this first season’s catch 
would be a big start toward the attainment of 
his one great ambition. 

Both boys had insisted that the catch should 
be split three ways and that Kennedy should 
take his third. Kennedy had vetoed this sug- 
gestion and explained that a hundred head of 
81 


FUR SIGN 


the cows being wintered in the leases were his 
own. 

“ And I’ve got a little other stuff scattered 
round,” he said. ‘‘ I don’t rustle from necessity 
these days; it’s just habit. Brown and I are 
old friends and he feels that everything will 
run along all right with me on the job. I get 
restless when I’m holed up inside and this 
keeps me outdoors. I feed out a little bunch 
of stock with his every year. That would 
hardly be the right thing for me to do, to cut 
in on your catch when you’re just making a 
start.” 

The first snow of the season was falling and 
as they sat round the stove they could hear the 
soft rustle of flakes among the naked branches 
overhead. An occasional drop of water 
trickled through the vent left for the stovepipe 
and splashed with a sharp hiss on the stove. 

“ I wonder if those foxes will come again on 
this snow,” Rawhide said. Two days before 
Kennedy pointed out the tracks of two foxes 
on a muddy shore. “ Maybe we’ll catch one in 
a spring pool set.” 


82 


FUR SIGN 


“ Maybe — but not likely,” Kennedy re- 
turned. 

“ Why not? ” Rawhide asked. “ Because 
they’re too smart? ” 

“ No, because they’re too scarce,” Kennedy 
said. “ There’s not many round here, only an 
occasional stray red drifting through. You 
can catch any sort of a critter after you learn 
his habits and what sort of a set will fool him. 
Their ways of traveling, feeding and such are 
different, and with different degTees of intelli- 
gence all the way down the line. Such stuff as 
possum, skunk and civet will go out of their 
way to get in a trap. A marten will go a mile 
to get caught and a lynx or bobcat is plumb 
stupid after you learn how to attract their at- 
tention and get them up near a set. Beaver 
is as easy to trap as a muskrat. A bear is 
smart in a good many ways. You’ve got your 
hands full when you set out to still-hunt a 
bear, but he’ll walk smack into a trap. Mink 
and coon are a trifle more shy but not hard to 
catch. Fox is a whole lot more clever but it’s 

no hard job for a good trapper to bag him. 

83 


FUR SIGN 


An otter is about the hardest critter to catch, 
on account of his habits. A coyote is next — 
on account of his brains. You’ll run up 
against all of those, more or less, when you get 
out into that country you’re headed for. Then 
3^ou’ll have a try for the coyotes and learn what 
real trapping is. You’ll be an artist on the 
trap line any time you can pinch the toes of the 
little yellow wolves.” 

“ I’m craving a try at them,” Buckskin 
stated. 

“ You’ll find that oftentimes there’s more 
money in trapping in a small-fur country than 
there is out in some mountain country working 
on coyote, cat and such sort of larger fur,” 
Kennedy predicted. “ It’s a mite more excit- 
ing maybe but not always so profitable.” 

He produced a price list and studied it. 

“ Fur is crawling up every month,” he said. 
“ It’s near double what it was last year. 
You’ll have a nice fat little stake by spring.” 


84 


V 


"^TEIL forded the South Fork and headed 

^ for the camp. He found that both boys 
were out on the trap line and that Kennedy 
was off riding fence. The camp was tempo- 
rarily deserted. Neil returned to the point 
where he had crossed the creek and gave a 
shrill whistle. An undersized figure scrambled 
down the timbered slope and the little man 
mounted Neil’s back to be carried across the 
stream. Neil led the way to the camp. 

“ Here she is,” he said. ‘‘ Get the lay of it 
in your mind.” 

He examined the green hides hanging on the 
stretchers under the canvas tarpaulin and the 
bundles of cured pelts suspended from the tent 
pole. 

‘‘ I’d have caught all that fur myself if that 
pair hadn’t kept me off the Forks,” he said. 

“ This was the best stretch of country for a 
85 


FUR SIGN 


hundred miles. I even oflPered to pay their 
fares out where they want to go and have you 
locate them on a homestead; but they wouldn't 
hear to my setting out a trap.” 

The small man grunted impatiently. 

“ Me locate ’em! ” he protested. “ I’m not 
out there any more. I’m here. And besides, 
they can’t homestead till they come of age.” 

“ I thought you were out there then and 
anyway they wouldn’t have discovered either 
fact till after they got there and tried to file,” 
Neil pointed out. “ So I told them I had peo- 
ple out there that would start them right if 
they’d let me trap the Forks.” 

“ You must have put up a real convincing 
talk,” the small man gmmbled. “ They’re still 
here. And here’s right at a thousand dollars’ 
worth of fur. That’s enough for me.” 

He snapped the string which held a bundle 
of mink pelts to the tent pole. 

“ Don’t you! ” Neil ordered sharply. 

His companion pulled down a second bale of 
fur. Neil seized his arm and jerked him back 

as he reached for a third. 

86 


FUR SIGN 


“ You want to get us jailed? ” he demanded. 

“ You dragged me clear up here to lift this 
fur,” the dwarfish one stated. “ Let’s get it ! 
You put it off till the snow caught us and we 
couldn’t get near without leaving our tracks. 
You want to wait for another snow that may 
lay on the ground for months? Right now 
suits me.” 

He reached again for a bundle of fur but 
Neil jerked his arm savagely and moved out- 
side the tent, where he peered off in all direc- 
tions. 

“ I’ve got to stay in the clear,” he declared. 
“ We’d have been gone with it now except that 
Brown saw me the first day I landed and he 
knows I’m back in the country. Nobody 
knows you’re this side of the pit. They’ll link 
me up with it sure unless I can prove to the 
contrary, and that fellow Kennedy would 
never quit till he had me picked up if I stopped 
anywheres short of Siam. He’s a hard nut, 
that old lizard, and he’ll back those two stray 
kids to the limit. I don’t want him camped on 
my trail.” 


87 


FUR SIGN 


“ I suppose you want him on mine,” the 
small man asserted. 

“ He don’t know you’re in the country,” 
Neil returned. “ I’ll stay over at Brown’s 
every minute of the day you lift this fur. 
That’ll let me out. It’s got to be that way 
since Brown saw me up in the hills. Then I’ll 
join you in a couple of days.” 

Neil’s counsel prevailed and he rearranged 
the bundles of fur in their original positions 
and led the way to the creek, forded it with the 
dwarfed man riding his back, and disappeared 
in the timber of the slope. 

Two days thereafter Rawhide rode into 
camp and prepared to skin out the skunk, mink 
and two possums that constituted his catch for 
the day. Something seemed amiss but for a 
space of thirty seconds he could not place what 
it was. Then he noted the absence of green 
hides on the stretchers under the tarp. The 
full sense of disaster failed to penetrate at 
once and he gazed stupidly for a moment, then 
whirled and peered into the tent. The com- 
pact bales of cured fur were gone. 

88 


FUR SIGN 


Day after day he had counted those pelts 
and exulted over every addition that helped 
swell their growing assortment of fur. Their 
catch had loomed large as a stepping stone to 
future ambitions and he had dreamed great 
dreams. This sudden wiping out of their en- 
tire resources left him stunned. The squeak of 
oarlocks came from down the creek. Buckskin 
was coming in from his round of the lower trap 
line. A species of inertia seemed to lay hold 
of Rawhide and numb his faculties. He sat 
upon a log and all the brightness seemed gone 
from the earth. The lapse of time between the 
discovery and the moment when his partner 
made the boat fast to the bank was sufficient to 
bring about a revulsion of feeling. The deter- 
mination to recover the fur surged through him 
and roused an intense desire for action. When 
Buckskin reached the tent his partner was 
scouting the vicinity for some sign that would 
reveal the identity of the thief. 

Battler sniffed at several objects that had 
been touched by the intruder and struck a 

track which he worked out to the bank of the 
89 


FUR SIGN 


South Fork. Rawhide took the shotgun and 
followed. 

“ He’s on the trail,” he said. “ Come on.” 

But the dog was puzzled. The trail was 
cold and he could not find even a trace on the 
far shore. He had hunted coons that had 
taken to the water to break their trails so he 
now employed tactics similar to the ones he 
used on such cases, scouting both banks for 
some sign of the trail leaving the water. Raw- 
hide saw him pass one spot and return to it. 
He repeated this manoeuver, then branched 
away from the creek and circled through the 
timber. But the man’s boots had been thor- 
oughly cleansed by the long wade and Battler 
could not work out the cold trail. 

Rawhide investigated the spot where Bat- 
tler had left the creek. He found one faint 
boot print under water. 

“ That’s Neil’s boot,” he announced. He 
had never forgotten the sole pattern which 
Kennedy had pointed out near the scene of the 
stolen coon. 

Kennedy rode into camp as they returned. 

90 


FUR SIGN 


He shook his head when Rawhide named Neil 
as the thief. 

“ Couldn’t have been,” he stated positively. 
“ I’ve just come from Brown’s, and Neil has 
been there all yesterday and to-day. Says he’s 
going to pull up-country in two or three days.” 

“ But that boot track,” Rawhide objected. 

“ Some other boot the same kind as Neil’s,” 
Keimedy said. “ Or maybe some man wear- 
ing Neil’s boots. Let me study this out. 
We’ve got to get back that fur.” 

He called Battler and headed for the South 
Fork. In two hours he was back in camp, but 
with all his knowledge of woodcraft he had 
been able to unearth but little additional sign. 
However, his mind had not been idle. It was 
certain that all the fur could not have been 
transported in one load, its bulk precluding 
such a possibility, yet only one man had been 
concerned in it. Kennedy had found where 
the thief had left the creek some fifty yards 
upstream on his second trip. It would have 
required almost an hour to make two trips be- 
tween the camp and this point and the man 
91 


FUR SIGN 


must have been armed with accurate informa- 
tion as to the habits of the three who lived at 
the camp. A stray prowler drifting through 
and stumbling upon the tent by chance would 
never have come back for the second load of 
fur, for he would not know at what moment 
the occupants might return. Neil was the one 
man who knew that each one of the boys had a 
regular route and seldom returned before mid- 
afternoon and that Kennedy rode fence on cer- 
tain days. 

The boys had based high hopes on Ken- 
nedy’s woodcraft. A dozen times during his 
absence they had attempted to reassure them- 
selves by stating that Kennedy would come in 
with accurate news of the one who had raided 
their camp and they were numbed by the shock 
of disappointment when he dropped from his 
horse and shook his head. 

“ Hardly a scratch,” he announced. “ But 
we’ll get that fur back or nail somebody’s hide 
to the fence.” 

He knew what this loss meant to the two 

homeless boys. Their world had crashed about 
92 


FUR SIGN 


their ears with this sudden sacking of the camp. 
Kennedy explained his train of reasoning. 

“ Neil is in this,” he said. “ But he had some 
other man do the work while he stuck close 
round Brown’s place so we couldn’t link him 
up with it. Later they’ll meet some place and 
split. The only way I know is for me to keep 
a line on Neil and try and follow him when he 
leaves.” 

“ How about that friend of his — Martin? ” 
Rawhide asked. “ The one he visited over on 
Otter Fork? ” 

“No such party,” Kennedy informed. 
“ Neil invented him on the spur of the moment 
to account for his being up the South Fork at 
that hour in the morning. 

“ Newt Sanders has trapped the Otter Fork 
for ten years. There’s no other trapping camp 
within fifteen miles and if there was there’d 
be no way for them to learn our habits. That 
fellow had to make two trips up the creek. He 
knew we wouldn’t be back. Then he could re- 
lay the two packs a mile at a time and be way 

off across the hills before ever we discovered it. 

93 


FUR SIGN 


No way to tell which wa}^^ he headed. Maybe 
he cached the fur or maybe he had a pack 
horse, but I couldn’t pick up a horse track. 
We’ll go out and scour the hills on the off 
chance that we’ll find him coming back to a 
cache to-night to make off with his haul.” 

They scattered through the hills and moved 
silently, listening for some sound which might 
indicate the presence of the thief. Once Raw- 
hide heard the popping of a dead limb under a 
heavy foot. A moment later he heard the 
swish of brush across a canvas coat. He sta- 
tioned himself behind a tree, the shotgun at 
ready, and tensed himself to shoot if it proved 
to be the thief and he refused to surrender the 
fur without a fight. There was the sound of a 
foot striking a down-log, then a low whistle 
which had been arranged as a signal between 
the three. Rawhide answered it and joined 
Buckskin, who had heard his partner’s prog- 
ress through the timber and headed for the 
spot, believing it might prove to be the 
thief. 

“ Good thing Kennedy arranged that sig- 
94 


FUR SIGN 


nal,” Buckskin whispered. “ We might have 
been shooting at each other without that. 
Kennedy thinks of everything — never over- 
looks a point.” 

They separated again to prowl the hills. By 
midnight they were back in camp. Battler had 
failed to pick up any sign of an intruder, 
which he would certainly have done if any had 
been abroad in the country covered by their 
circling. An hour before their return he had 
treed a possum and his music would have ap- 
prised any man within earshot that the three 
were scouring the hills near that point. 

It was not until after their return that Raw- 
hide recalled the dwarfish man he had seen 
some five days before and mentioned the fact 
to Kennedy. 

Kennedy laid a hand on his shoulder and 
looked down at him. 

“ Son, you ought to take more notice of such 
things,” he said. “ That’s the man that got 
your fur. If you’d mentioned at the time 
about seeing him I’d have guessed right off and 

moved our catch up to Brown’s.” 

95 


FUR SIGN 


“ But how would you have known? ” Raw- 
hide objected. 

“ First off, there’s not a house off up that 
way for fifteen miles,” Kennedy explained; 
“ nor even a camp, which fact ought to have 
set you thinking in itself. He wouldn’t be 
trapping for there’s mighty little fur up on 
those ridges; there’s nothing to hmit besides 
cottontails and squirrels and he wasn’t even 
packing a gun. Now if that’s the little sawed- 
off spider I’m thinking of his name is Neil. 
He was one of the two that hung out down in 
the Santag Swamp before they got chased out. 
Likely our friend Neil is a branch of the same 
tribe after all and since this one has come back 
from the West he’s put him up to this job. 
This simplifies matters some — but not a tenth 
part as much as if you’d told me two hours be- 
fore dark.” 

“ I’ve never thought of it since,” Rawhide 
lamented. “ But how could you have done any 
differently than what we did to-night? ” 

“ I’d have himted downstream instead of 

up-country,” Kennedy said. “ Men run true 
96 


FUR SIGN 


to form, sort of. Any man that lives in the 
Flint Hills would plan to get that fur out on 
a horse because they live mostly on horses. 
This fellow was pretty much of a swamp 
dweller so his ideas would naturally lean toward 
boats. Ten to one he’s been scouting back in 
the hills like a coyote waiting for this chance, 
and had a boat cached a few miles below. The 
very fact that he headed upstream first is 
probably because he figaired your mind would 
work like his and you’d hunt downstream for 
his tracks. Then he doubled back and relayed 
his furs down along the slopes and cached them 
till night. While we were prowling up-coun- 
try he was way down below getting them to 
his boat. I may be way off but it’s the best 
guess I can make. You turn in for some sleep. 
It’s out before sun-up for us.” 

What little sleep Rawhide gathered was of 
a feverish sort. The loss of the fur and the 
consequent crumbling of his plans preyed on 
his mind and served to keep him awake. Buck- 
skin tossed restlessly beside him throughout 

the balance of the night and it was with a sense 
97 


FUR SIGN 


of relief that they heard Kennedy’s hail from 
the teepee two hours before dawn. 

“ Turn out,” he called. “ Time to be off. 
I’ll get breakfast while you boys strap your 
bed roll and pack it to the boat. Then we’ll 
sack up some grub. We may be off on a long 
hunt with no telling when we’ll see camp 
again. Rawhide, you throw my saddle on 
Warrior. One of us will maybe have to make 
a ride.” 

Dajdight found them below Brown’s line 
fence. Buckskin and Kennedy in the boat while 
Rawhide rode Warrior along the bank. They 
slowed their pace and Kennedy investigated 
every nook which might serve as a hiding place 
for a boat. Where little spring creeks broke 
into the Clearwater he prospected back up the 
willow-grown channels wherever it seemed 
possible that a man might have dragged even 
a light canoe. 

When something over a mile below the fence 
he left the boat and waded up the narrow chan- 
nel of a spring run, the tops of the tall willow 

brush meeting over his head. He hailed the 
98 


FUR SIGN 


boys from a few yards beyond and Buckskin 
tied the boat and waded up to him while Raw- 
hide put Warrior into the stream and forded 
it. 

“ Here’s where his boat was cached,” Ken- 
nedy announced. “ So far we’re right.” 

The bark of some few willows had been 
rubbed by the edge of the boat. The tangle 
of brush had been spread apart by the passage 
of some heavy body and not all of the saplings 
had lifted back into place. Beyond the 
twenty-yard fringe of willows the rank stand 
of slough gi’ass had been bent over by several 
journeys through it. Kennedy pointed to one 
stretch of bank which showed more moisture 
than the rest and looked inquiringly at Raw- 
hide. 

“ He splashed water over it to wash out the 
sign,” Rawhide said. “ The same as Neil did 
when he stole my coon out of the trap.” 

“ That’s what,” Kennedy assented. 
“ You’re learning fast. He’s wearing Neil’s 
boots or a pair just like ’em. Now he didn’t 

start bringing down that fur from wherever he 
99 


FUR SIGN 


cached it till after nightfall and it would take 
up considerable time, so he didn’t leave here 
till late. Even at that he would have a big 
start, only that he’ll lay up somewhere during 
the day. There’s twenty miles of the Santag 
River that’s pretty well lined up with farms. 
A hundred people might see him if he covered 
that stretch when it’s light and he couldn’t have 
made it past the whole bottoms before daylight 
this morning, what with switching back and 
forth across the channel to dodge bars and 
such. At low water the Santag is mainly sand- 
bars and a man will travel five miles for eveiy 
three he gains downstream. We may nip him 
yet.” 

Kennedy scribbled hastily on three sheets of 
his note book, detached them and handed them 
to Rawhide who headed out across the Flint 
Hills. He stopped at Brown’s and handed 
him the first sheet. The second page contained 
directions for his day’s travel and he consulted 
it from time to time. His course was angling 
and cut off much distance from the route lead- 
ing along the shore line. He held Warrior to 
100 


FUR SIGN 


a shuffling trail trot and occasionally pulled 
him to a walk for he had forty miles to cover 
before night. He followed the high ground 
well back from the river without descending to 
the wide bottoms of the Santag, thickly settled 
for a long stretch on the near side of the river. 
The bottoms narrowed eventually and pinched 
out where the stream entered a gorge flanked 
by limestone bluffs. At the far end of this lit- 
tle canyon he rode out onto the shoulder of a 
hill and viewed a vast, timbered flat spread out 
below him, the sheen of water showing in eveiy 
opening between the trees. The main channel 
of the river skirted the bluffs on the near shore 
but there was no deflnite bank on the far side, 
the water apparently spreading through the 
timber without check. 

He rode down till he struck a small creek 
flowing to the river. A mile up its course an 
open glade was fenced off for a pasture and a 
small log cabin stood on the far edge of it. 
The third note was destined for McIntyre, the 
man who dwelt here, requesting his assistance. 

The cabin was locked and gave no evidence of 
101 


FUR SIGN 


recent occupancy. There was no help to be 
gained in this quarter and it was squarely up 
to Rawhide to do his single-handed best. He 
hung saddle and bridle over a log, thmst the 
note under the cabin door in case McIntyre 
should return, and headed for the river, carry- 
ing his grub sack and the shotgun. 

Night was shutting down when he reached 
the river and headed downstream till he drew 
abreast of the first tongues of the swamp on 
the opposite side. After half a mile the chan- 
nel swept away from the high country and he 
could progress no farther and keep within 
sight of it as there were lanes of water reach- 
ing back through the swales between the tim- 
bered hummocks. But he could not stop now. 

The water was icy cold and chilled his whole 
body as he stripped off his clothing and waded 
in, carrying his lunch sack and garments lashed 
to the barrel of the shotgun. He felt his way 
cautiously lest he step off into a deep hole and 
find himself over his depth and his equipment 
soaked. Eventually he came out on a flat 

piece of ground that flanked a long open 
102 


FUR SIGN 


stretch of water. A sluggish current testified 
that this was the main channel of the Santag. 

Rawhide was blue with cold and the crisp 
air stung his skin. He stamped and swung his 
arms to restore circulation and dry his body be- 
fore pulling on his garments, then posted him- 
self behind a log jam which commanded a long 
stretch of the channel either way from his 
stand. 

Black night shut down around him and left 
him alone in the swamp. Hour after hour he 
listened without catching the sound for which 
his ears were strained although the night 
seemed full of other weird noises. Some tree 
near him groaned as if in agony with every 
breeze that stirred its top. Across from him 
two slanting dead trees squeaked loudly at the 
intersection of their crossed trunks, which 
gloated together with every wind-swayed move- 
ment of the living trees upon which they 
leaned. Once some creature splashed in the 
swamp close at hand. Owls hooted hollowly 
from far and near and lent a ghostly quality 

to the night. The cold gripped him but he 
103 


PUR SIGN 


dozed off several times, only to rouse with a 
start and peer off into the shadows. 

At last the sound came — the distant squeak 
of rowlocks from upstream. They drew 
nearer and he caught the muffled splash of oar 
blades in the water. Kennedy had figured 
rightly. If only McIntyre had been at home 
and ready with his boat they might even now 
intercept the thief and recover his cargo of 
stolen fur. The sounds drew abreast of him 
but the boatman kept to the far side of the 
stream in the shadow of the timber and he 
could not even make out the dark blot of the 
boat upon the water. 

Rawhide’s eyes were accustomed to the 
darkness and he could travel at a fair rate of 
speed. He followed after the boat, his feet 
making no sound on the moist earth. After a 
quarter of a mile the boat had almost dis- 
tanced him but he held on. The open channel 
swept back toward the bluffs two miles behind 
and he followed the curve. He stopped to 
listen again for the squeak of oars. They 

drifted faintly to his ears but seemed to come 
104 


FUR SIGN 


from directly opposite instead of from far 
downstream as before. It came to him that 
the man no longer followed the sweep of the 
main channel but had turned off into some 
watery byway instead. He strained his ears 
and at last the sounds died away without 
having gained either upstream or down. The 
boatman had headed directly back into the 
depths of the swamp. 

After marking the spot by a small stick 
thrust into the mud at the water’s edge he re- 
traced his way to the log jam and ate a few 
bites of his lunch. The balance of the night 
seemed months long as he alternately dozed 
and roused to stamp about and warm his 
chilled body. He dared not light a fire lest 
its light should apprise the man of the fact that 
he had been traced this far and send him deeper 
into the swamp. After a period that seemed 
ages long a faint gray streak showed in the 
east. Rawhide heard again the squeak of oars, 
very soft this time, as if the oarlocks had been 
greased to eliminate all sound. The splash of 

oars was barely audible. Then the sounds 
105 


FUR SIGN 


ceased as the boatman rested on the oars. Into 
the silence came the first few bai’S of a red- 
bird’s whistle as if the cardinal had been roused 
from sleep to greet the false dawn; another 
brief spell of rowing and another silence of 
shipped oars. The redbird’s whistle came 
again. Rawhide breathed a sigh of relief and 
moved to the bank. That was Kennedy’s sig- 
nal. Buckskin and Kennedy had taken turns 
at the oars all night and reached the swamp. 


106 


VI 


HE three drifted down the sluggish cur- 



rent, bolting a hasty bite of cold breakfast 
as the shadows lifted in the east. Tired as they 
were they could not afford to stop for a rest. 

Rawhide pointed out his marker at the 
water’s edge. 

“ Whoever it was in the boat turned back 
into the swamp right across from here,” he 
said. 

Kennedy headed the boat for the opposite 
shore. Within two hundred yards there were 
three broad lanes of water leading back be- 
tween wooded banks. 

“ We’ll take the middle one on a chance,” 
Kennedy decided. “ The worst thing about 
the Santag Swamp is the fact that you can’t 
guess in advance whether a patch of water will 
prove a blind lead or run on for miles.” 

After half a mile the open lane feathered out 
into branching waterways and there was no way 


107 


FUR SIGN 


to determine which one their man had chosen. 
Kennedy selected one that angled off toward 
the right as being a more likely route for the 
reason that it led toward the depths of the 
swamp. The water was shallow and as the 
boat glided along Kennedy peered over its side 
and scanned the mud a few inches below the 
surface. 

“ A man will naturally dip a little too deep 
from force of habit and let his oars slice into 
the bottom where it’s as shallow as this,” he 
explained. 

Several times he nodded as he made out the 
slash of an oar blade in the mud bottom. 

“ He came this way,” he announced. 

But after following the lane for some four 
hundred yards it suddenly terminated in a lit- 
tle bay that widened out among the trees. 
Kennedy backed water with the oars to arrest 
the advance of the boat as he scanned every 
inch of shore line. There were no trees at 
this point within fifty yards of the water’s 
edge and an oozing mud flat merged almost 
imperceptibly with the water. 

108 


FUR SIGN 


“ The tree line is high-water mark,” Ken- 
nedy said. “ A man couldn’t cross that mud 
flat without wallowing up to his hips. He 
never crossed out through here. He’s cut back 
somewhere down below.” 

They headed the boat back along its former 
course and Kennedy examined every watery 
lead that branched away from it. The major- 
ity of these were mere indentations that 
pinched out within a few yards of the mouth, 
the water too shallow to permit the passage of 
a boat. There were several which led farther 
back and Kennedy stood up in the boat to de- 
termine their possibilities. At last he pointed 
to a channel some flve feet across, leading 
straight back through the trees for a dozen 
yards, only to end in a sloping bank. At the 
extreme tip of this the slash of an oar blade 
showed on the mud of the bank. 

“ That makes a square turn,” Kennedy an- 
nounced. “ He slid into it with shipped oars 
and gave one dig to throw him round the 
bend.” 

He headed the nose of the boat at the mouth 
1Q9 


FUR SIGN 


of the narrow lead and two strokes of the oars 
furnished sufficient momentum to carry the 
boat to the turn after he lifted the oars. A 
single swift slice at the bank with one oar 
veered the boat around the sharp bend and the 
waterway widened perceptibly, then twisted 
again and swept on toward the heart of the 
swamp. 

Twice more they were delayed by branching 
lanes but each time Kennedy found some sign 
which revealed which way the boat had passed ; 
the marks of oar blades on the mud bottom of 
the shallows or a single clean slice on the shore. 
Once it was a sleek patch on the bank at the 
water line which guided him up a narrow pas- 
sage. The boatman had headed into it with 
shipped oars after gathering momentum, and 
the side of the gliding boat had sheered along 
one bank and smoothed the mud for six feet 
along the water’s edge. 

They had worked out the trail for a distance 
of four miles back into the swamp by the time 
the sun was two hours high. Here there was 

a veritable network of passages breaking into 
110 


FUR SIGN 


one another and feathering out in every direc- 
tion. A boatman might turn off on either 
hand at will. 

“ It’s time for us to hole up,” Kennedy as- 
serted. “ He might be asleep after putting in 
two hard nights — and again he might be 
awake. From now on we’d have to work out 
every foot of his trail and he’d hear us messing 
round before we got within half a mile of his 
hangout. He’d take to his boat and he could 
travel at about forty times the rate at which 
we could track him.” 

He chose a blind lead that made a sharp 
bend into a patch of high ground. This seiwed 
to conceal the boat. The bed rolls were spread 
on the gi’ound. 

“ If that fellow you saw in the hills was 
-Bantam Neil, he’s got a regular hangout down 
here from years past,” Kennedy said. “ And 
all the signs point to him. He couldn’t even 
guess we were anywhere this side of camp and 
might be a bit careless in moving round. One 
of us will have to stand guard and keep awake 

in case he stirs up any racket that will tip off 
111 


FUR SIGN 


his whereabouts, or in case Reese Neil comes 
in through the swamp to join him. You 
boys turn in for a nap and I’ll stand first 
guard.” 

Rawhide insisted, however, that the first 
guard should be his and Kennedy assented. 

“ If we only had Battler we wouldn’t need 
a guard,” Buckskin said. 

“ If we had Battler we might as well go 
home,” Kennedy returned. “ That’s why I 
left him chained up at Kell’s farm on the way 
down. He’d likely tree a possum first off and 
make enough noise to rouse the whole swamp. 
If ever the Neils get a notion we’re here they’ll 
decamp. Our game now is to wait.” 

Rawhide stood his turn for two hours. The 
whole world seemed wrapped in a vast silence 
except for a few bird notes. Once a belated 
bittern that had failed to move south with the 
rest of his tribe boomed from far out in the 
swamp. Rawhide roused his partner at the 
end of two hours and turned in for a much- 
needed rest. The whole day passed without a 

sound that might have been made by a human. 

112 


FUR SIGN 


Three different times one of the boys had 
scaled a tall tree that grew on the knoll and 
scanned the swamp for some ribbon of smoke 
which would indicate the presence of human 
habitation but not the faintest haze drifted 
above the trees. 

An hour after sundown Kennedy built a 
small fire, its light shrouded by blankets, and 
cooked a hot meal. The swamp was in the 
grip of a dead calm and the night as silent as 
the day except for the infrequent splash of 
some small fur bearer. At last Kennedy held 
up his hand. The strokes of an ax, far and 
faint, drifted to their ears. 

“ There he is,” Kennedy said. ‘‘ A mile or 
more off I’d say. At daylight we’ll shift camp 
a notch closer and lay up for the day.” 

This move was made, and before the sun 
showed above the eastern horizon the boat was 
safely cached and the bed rolls spread in a 
thick cluster of trees some three-quarters of a 
mile nearer the point from which the ax had 
sounded the preceding night. 

“ He might come poking along this way in 
113 


FUR SIGN 


a boat and we’ll hold him up and tie him to a 
tree,” Kennedy said. “ Then we could go on 
and locate his den. Or maybe we can catch the 
glow of his night fire. My note to Brown told 
of the raid and that two of us were hunting 
up-country while Rawhide rode to town to 
post a reward for the thief. Brown has told 
Neil. Neil figures he’s in the clear and he’ll 
likely come sifting down here before long. 
Anyway, we’ll have to wait for something to 
break.” 

Only once during the day was there indi- 
cation of life in the swamp. This was a hollow 
boom as if some heavy object had been 
dropped in the bottom of a boat. It served to 
point out the direction of Bantam Neil’s re- 
treat and Kennedy estimated that it could not 
be more than a half mile farther on. 

“ Once we’ve located it exactly and find a 
clear water route to the spot we can move in 
on him quick,” Kennedy explained. ‘‘ If we 
make one false move to inform him we’re any- 
wheres near it’s all off. He wouldn’t need 

over a five-minute start to shake us.” 

114 


FUR SIGN 


Just before dusk Kennedy held up his hand 
for silence. 

“ Boat coming from the other way,” he 
whispered. ‘‘ Don’t even wag an ear while it’s 
passing. It’s a canoe, not a rowboat. I can 
tell by the dip of the paddle; and twice he’s 
bumped the paddle shank as he rested it on the 
edge to drift; likely a log dugout the Neils had 
cached out at the edge of the swamp. If this 
is Reese Neil our calculations have checked out 
correct.” 

The three sprawled flat behind a windfall at 
the edge of the little hollow which sheltered 
their makeshift camp. A canoe shot into sight 
and passed along an open lane of water. All 
three recognized Reese Neil as he came abreast 
of their log screen. Kennedy stood up to peer 
over the top log of the windfall after Neil had 
passed. The sounds of the paddle died out in 
the distance. 

“ I’ve got his course marked out for the next 
four hundred yards,” Kennedy announced. 
“ I could catch a glimpse of his hat here and 

there long after the canoe was out of sight. 

115 


FUR SIGN 


We know how to get that far and it hadn’t 
ought to be far from there to the camp.” 

During the early part of the night there 
were various sounds from the direction in 
which the canoe had disappeared, 

“ We’ll try her in the morning,” Kennedy 
decided. 

As soon as there was sufficient light for them 
to see fifty yards ahead they were in the boat. 
Kennedy had greased the rowlocks to eliminate 
any possible squeak, and as he followed Neil’s 
route of the evening past he dipped his oars 
with exceeding care to avoid the least splash, 
dodging the water-soaked logs with which the 
swamp was studded. Even a single bump of 
the boat against one of these snags might serve 
to warn their quarry. 

“ This is where I caught the last peek at his 
hat,” Kennedy whispered at last. “ We’re 
close onto them but there’s a hundred little 
feathering sloughs to choose from. We’ll head 
right through the middle of them. Here’s hop- 
ing the Neils are asleep.” 

He held on for another three hundred yards 
116 


FUR SIGN 


and rested his oars, signaling for silence as he 
peered off to the right. A distant voice had 
drifted faintly to his ears. He headed the boat 
into a slough and eased it along without a 
sound. The waterway ended in a round pool. 
A rowboat was tied to a huge log that slanted 
up the bank from the water. The top of the 
log was worn by the passage of many feet. 
He eased the nose of the boat against the bank 
and Rawhide stepped out and made it fast to 
a snag. In leaving the boat Buckskin picked 
up the oars to hand them out to Kennedy, as 
it had been agreed that they should cache the 
oars whenever they left the boat. In his haste 
he allowed them to slip from his hands and 
they fell to the boat with a clatter that sounded 
for a mile through the silent swamp. 

‘‘Quick!” Kennedy ordered sharply. 
“ Make it lively. That’ll start them off.” 

He mounted the bank with the boys close be- 
hind him and struck off through the timber at 
a trot. Within a hundred yards he caught the 
gleam of water between the tree trunks and 

knew that the high ground was but a narrow 
117 


FUR SIGN 


strip; but it might be a long island, and he 
headed to the left through a tangle of wind- 
falls. He had confidently expected to find a 
beaten path from the log but there was none 
and it occurred to him that the landing was an 
old one, previously much used but not suffi- 
ciently traveled of late to leave a trail. 

Another hundred yards and he made out the 
white of a tent through the timber and mo- 
tioned the boys to swing out to either side of 
his route. Kennedy was first to reach the tent 
and he peered through the flap, his gun thrust 
before him, but there was no occupant for his 
pistol to cover. The two boys were closing in 
from either side. 

“ They’ve gone with the fur,” he called. 
“ After ’em ! Quick ! ” 

He leaped into the tangle of blowdowns be- 
hind the tent, struck a path and followed it. 
Rawhide was forty yards on his right flank 
and his advance was retarded by dodging 
down-logs. Kennedy was well in the lead 
when Rawhide observed a movement directly 

in front of him. Bantam Neil’s head and 
118 


FUR SIGN 


shoulders appeared above a windfall and his 
rifle was trained on Kennedy. Rawhide lined 
along the barrel and at the roar of the shotgun 
Neil pitched down behind the logs while his 
rifle clattered down the opposite side of the 
windfall. Reese Neil’s hat showed for an in- 
stant off to the right of his companion’s stand 
and Rawhide shot again, then a third time at 
some moving shape that darkened the space 
between two breast-high logs. There was no 
further sign of life and Rawhide lay prone on 
the ground and watched the spot. 

Kennedy had whirled at the first shot and 
made for Rawhide’s location. He had seen 
neither of the Neils in the tangle off to his 
right. Rawhide pointed out the spot. 

“Bantam Neil, — he was going to shoot,” 
he said. His face had whitened with the 
thought that he had killed two men. “ Then 
Reese Neil. I killed them, I guess.” 

“ I hope so,” Kennedy stated with convic- 
tion. “ They’re poison hounds, both of ’em.” 

He was heading for the windfall and Raw- 

hide rose to follow him. Buckskin was an- 
119 


FUR SIGN 


gling swiftly in from the left. Kennedy 
rounded the end of the logs at a run but halted 
suddenly as he stumbled against a huge bale 
of furs. A similar bale had been dropped 
some twenty yards farther on through the tim- 
ber. 

“ Here’s what we came after,” he an- 
nounced. “ Let’s take it and get out of here. 
I’d rather hoped to take this Neil outfit back 
for a chat with the sheriff but they’re gone in 
the canoe by now. Likely they had it cached 
on the far side from the rowboat so they’d have 
two routes of retreat. It didn’t take ’em over 
ten seconds to get started away from the tent 
with that fur after Buckskin dropped the 
oars.” 

“ Then I didn’t kill either one,” Rawhide 
said with evident relief. 

“ Too far for a shotgun,” Kennedy re- 
turned. “ But you must have nicked Bantam’s 
ear or spattered the bridge of his nose with bird 
shot to make him drop that gun. Hope you 
filled Reese’s hide with shot too.” 

They retrieved Neil’s rifle and shouldered 
120 


FUR SIGN 


the bales of fur. These were so bulky as to 
cause them considerable difficulty in threading 
the timber to the boat. Somewhat later the 
swamp echoed again to the roar of the shotgun 
as Kennedy touched off two loads of shot' 
through Neil’s boat and tore two ragged holes 
at the water line. 

Three days thereafter they were back in the 
home camp at the forks of the Clearwater. 
The recovered fur was safely stored at Brown’s 
and both boys were busily engaged in strip- 
ping the pelts from thirty-odd rats and two 
mink gathered from the lower trap line, which 
Buckskin had run on the homeward trip of the 
boat. 

All seemed weU with the world. The Neils 
had been outlawed by the theft and were 
wanted by the sheriff. The season’s catch was 
intact and they were still catching fur. The 
first swirling flakes of snow were sifting down 
through the trees. 

“ She’s going to blow up a storm,” Kennedy 
said. “ Fur critters will be running to-night. 

They always come out to prowl just prior to a 
121 


FUR SIGN 


storm. Then they hole up during the cold 
snap that follows. There’s times when you 
won’t see a track, except rabbits and such, if 
it turns off cold after a snowfall.” 

‘‘ If my bait traps have pinched the toes of 
as much fur in six days’ accumulation as Buck- 
skin’s rat lines did I’ll hardly be able to pack 
in all my catch to-morrow night,” Rawhide 
speculated. ‘‘ Here’s hoping.” 

The following morning he set out on War- 
rior to ride his lines while the snow whirled 
through the hills. He had been toughened to 
the saddle by much riding and even the long 
day’s ride back from McIntyre’s cabin on the 
edge of the Santag Swamp had failed to stiffen 
him. The rough life in the open had expanded 
his chest, and the city pallor which had 
stamped his face a few months past had been 
replaced by a healthy brown ; his muscles were 
tough and springy and the stoop was gone 
from his shoulders. 

He took a mink from a bait set under the 
overhanging roots of an elm and found a coon 

waiting for him in the big log jam above 
122 


FUR SIGN 


camp. Then there was trap after trap that 
had not been touched. This monotony induced 
preoccupation and his thoughts were of the fu- 
ture as he continued on his rounds. He was 
roused from his abstraction with a start by 
the movement of some large object off to the 
right of him. Warrior snorted and sidled un- 
easily. Rawhide had almost forgotten the trap 
on the down-log bridging the creek at this 
point for it had not made a catch in three 
weeks. A big red fox paced nervously to and 
fro on the log, his foot fast in the trap. 

Rawhide rode into camp that night with a 
big catch of fur, the last good haul of the win- 
ter. The snow fell without a break for three 
days and all the world was smothered in white. 
A freeze-up followed the storm. The shore 
ice prevented the trapping of bank rats and 
the water sets on the Clearwater were pulled. 
As snow followed snow the bait sets were in- 
creased and water sets were made at the spring 
pools that never froze over; but the fur seemed 
to have vanished from the face of the earth 
and catches were few. 

123 


FUR SIGN 


They worked hard at their lines neverthe- 
less, for each added pelt was that much to the 
good. Mink still traveled when the cold was 
not too intense and civets were prone to prowl 
abroad long after their larger cousins, the 
skunks, had denned for the winter. A few 
stray foxes left their tracks in the snow. There 
were brief chinooks when warm winds fanned 
their breath across the hills for a few days at a 
time. During these warm snaps an occasional 
coon or possum strayed out of his winter quar- 
ters and planted his foot on a trap. Only 
three skunks were caught over the course of 
two months, these latter being bagged when 
their tribe grew restless and came from the 
dens during a week’s thaw; but the skunks 
holed up once more when a cold wave followed 
this touch of false spring. A big dog fox was 
caught in a spring pool set. All told, they 
averaged a trifle over one pelt a day for two 
months. 

The fur was beginning to slip and the trap 
lines were pulled, for Kennedy explained that 

rubbed hides or spring shedders brought even 
124 


FUR SIGN 


less on the market than unprime hides caught 
too early in the fall. 

“Anyway, you’ve caught enough from up 
there. Never trap too close, but be dead sure 
and leave plenty of critters to raise another 
crop of fur for next year,” Kennedy said when 
the last trap was in. “ Now we’ll work the 
big marsh. This will be a little different from 
any trapping you’ve done up to date.” 

The snow lay deep across the ice of the 
marsh but it was beginning to pack and melt 
off before the thaws of approaching spring. 
Kennedy pointed out scores of white mounds 
rising above the flat plain of ice. 

“ Those are rat houses, built of rushes and 
mud,” he said. “ Marsh rats live in houses in- 
stead of tunneling into the banks. We could 
cut in through the walls of the houses and trap 
them that way but I never break into rat 
houses now. It drives the rats out and they’ve 
no place to go. I’ll show you a better way.” 

He pointed out numerous smaller bumps 
that had been left above their surroundings as 

the snow melted down. 

125 


FUR SIGN 


“ Those are what trappers call push-ups,” 
he said. “ A rat cuts up through the ice to 
the snow line and makes a feed shelf on the ice 
and under the snow. He comes there with 
slough grass, willow roots, water plants and 
such. After he eats the best part he pushes 
what’s left up into the snow over his head in- 
stead of spilling it back into the water.” 

He broke the snow crust above a push-up 
and uncovered a heap of vegetable refuse un- 
derneath. This he pried apart with the handle 
of his hand-ax and revealed a small shelf at 
the under edge of the snow. A hole led down 
through solid ice to the water. He had 
brought a bundle of three-foot willows an inch 
in diameter. The trap chain was fastened in 
the center of one so that any pull would be ex- 
erted crosswise and the stick could not be 
pulled do^vn through the hole. The trap was 
set on the shelf and the vegetable refuse 
closed again at the top, the stick remaining 
outside of the push-up. 

“ There you are,” Kennedy said. “ Go to 

it. All trapping is simple once you get lined 
126 


FUR SIGN 


out — and considerable difficult if you don’t 
savvy the right kinds of sets for special sorts 
of work. There’s push-ups in hundreds, all 
over the marsh. In a few days now they’ll be 
showing up black as the snow melts off the 
top. Then you can spot them a mile. Spring 
rat hides are better than fall.” 

The boys had learned that the pelt of the 
muskrat is prime in the spring when the fur 
of most others will slip. Later they would 
come to know that this was equally true of 
beaver and bear. 

They made sixty sets before night and the 
next day’s run yielded two dozen rats. They 
gloated over this big catch after the weeks of 
hard work on the bait lines with an average of 
but one pelt a day. But the season’s yield as 
a whole had run large. Up to date they had 
the pelts of some five himdred rats, sixty-three 
mink, forty-one coons, two of red fox and 
seventy odd each of civet, possum and skunk. 

“ You boys have made a nice stake,” Ken- 
nedy said. “ As pretty a bunch of fur as I’ve 

seen in many a year; all clean-fleshed and not 
127 


FUR SIGN 


an iinprime fall hide or a spring rubbed or 
shedder in the lot. Fur’s taken another little 
hitch upward in price. We’ll take this fur to 
market ourselves. I figure you ought to clean 
up close to eighteen hundred dollars on the 
bunch if you knock out another two hundred 
rats down on the marsh. Then you can work 
down at Brown’s for the summer and add a 
little to the pile without cutting into your capi- 
tal for expenses. That piece of land and all 
those cows you’re figuring to own some day are 
looming right near if you keep this up.” 


128 


VII 



SLENDER, wiry youth pulled up his 


^ ^ horse and slipped sidewise in the saddle, 
resting one hand on the animal’s rump as he 
looked back at the vista spread out below him. 
The valley widened as it fell away from him 
and a swift stream boiled through the rocks 
and tumbled toward the low country. Cotton- 
woods and willow clumps studded the stream 
bed, an occasional spruce thrusting up from 
among the deciduous trees. Aside from this 
water-course timber the land was treeless ex- 
cept for the scattered cedars, gnarled and 
wind-twisted, that sprouted from among the 
boulders of the sidehills. Here and there a 
pinon pine had found roothold among the 
clusters of sandstone outcroppings that had 
been worn into weird shapes by erosion. Far 
down the bottoms a flat spread out between the 
twin buttes that stood as sentinels at the mouth 


129 


FUR SIGN 


of the valley. Between these buttes an endless 
expanse of gray sage rolled away to the far 
horizon. The flat was marked by a small 
square of vivid green, evidence that here the 
home of some man had been made possible by 
irrigation. 

Once the boy had been Bob Tanner of the 
congested city, and had dreamed that he was 
Rawhide, the free lance of the open. Now 
that the fact itself was accomplished, there was 
no further use for the fanciful title that had 
fostered pretense and it had been relegated to 
the past; for he was now Bob Tanner, not of 
the city, but of the sage country, the lodgepole 
valleys and the snow-capped mountain ranges. 
The boy’s eyes lingered fondly on that distant 
square of green that had come to mean home to 
him. Then he turned and headed his horse up- 
country. 

The trail mounted steeply to the notch in the 
rims where Bobcat Creek broke through from 
the higher hills. It was plainly blazed after he 
entered the timber, for it was a Forest Service 

pack trail. He followed it through a valley of 
130 


FUR SIGN 


stately lodgepole pines, their trunks rising 
straight and true as rifle barrels as they 
stretched their tufted tops toward the sun. 

The horse nickered and drew an answer 
from just ahead. Bob had arranged to meet 
Dickson, the local F orest Ranger, at this point, 
and found him waiting round a bend in the 
trail. 

“All right. Bob,” Dickson greeted. “ We’ll 
get those trees marked out for your house logs 
in less than an hour. I have to go on up to 
the sheep camp as soon as we’ve finished.” 

The ranger led his horse as they angled up 
the slope through the trees but Bob elected to 
leave his own animal tied near the trail. A 
hundred yards from the start the ranger laid 
his hand on the trunk of a lofty lodgepole. It 
was twelve inches through at the butt, rising 
straight and true. 

“ How’s this fellow? ” Dickson asked. 

Bob nodded his approval and Dickson blazed 
a patch on the trunk six inches from the 
ground with his ranger’s hatchet, then swung 

the butt against the white wood and the U. S. 

131 


FUR SIGN 


brand loomed in the center of the blaze, evi- 
dence that this tree had been legally marked 
for cutting. They tacked back and forth, an- 
gling up-country, and in something over an 
hour had marked out forty trees that were per- 
fectly matched for size. The ranger had also 
blazed a hundred smaller trees which could be 
used for corral poles, selecting these from 
among heavy stands of young growth in order 
that the trees might be thinned out and give 
the remaining ones room for growth. Then 
Dickson rode away, headed for the sheep camp. 
This camp lay twenty miles beyond along the 
pack trail, just at timber line. Here a sheep 
outfit whose home ranch was well out in the 
flats on the far flank of the hills ranged their 
flocks in summer, grazing the woolly bands 
slowly through the broad meadows at the 
upper edge of the tree line. 

Bob headed back to his horse but when he 
reached the spot where he had left him the ani- 
mal was gone. The boy held on down the 
trail, assuming that his mount had taken the 

back track for home, as a horse which breaks 
132 


FUR SIGN 


loose in the hills almost invariably does. But 
there were no horse tracks pointing down-coun- 
try on top of those his steed had left coming up 
a short time before. Bob returned to the spot 
where the horse had been tied and examined 
both flanks of the trail, determining that the 
runaway had veered to the left. For a short 
distance he worked out the trail from the 
patches of fresh earth and disturbed pine 
needles at points where the horse had evidently 
stepped on either the trailing bridle reins or 
neck rope and stumbled. Eventually he lost 
the trail and could not pick it up. He re- 
paired to the shoulder of a spur that rose above 
the trees and from this point of vantage he ex- 
amined the country below, scanning the open 
parks and meadows opening out among the 
trees. Sheep grazing was not permitted on 
this slope of the range but cows were sum- 
mered in the Forest and he made out several 
scattered bunches grazing in the openings. 
He chose another spur and eventually located 
the runaway feeding in a sidehill glade. When 

he reached the horse he discovered that his gun, 
133 


FUR SIGN 


a heavy .33 rifle, was gone from the saddle 
scabbard. 

“ You, Split Ear,” he admonished, “ you 
onery flea-bit little rascal, what sort of antics 
did you perform in order to spill that rifle out 
of there? Must have been standing on your 
head.” 

For two hours hie rode back and forth 
through the country between the glade and the 
point where the horse had been tied, but even- 
tually gave up hope of discovering the missing 
rifle and turned his horse toward home. A 
slender thread of smoke issued from the chim- 
ney of the little cabin as he neared it. An 
Airedale bounced up the trail to greet him and 
Battler fell in behind Split Ear, following the 
horse to the corral. 

Wally Porter — once Buckskin of the Flint 
Hills — opened the cabin door and announced 
that a meal was on the table. After the even- 
ing meal had been completed and the dishes 
washed the two partners sat on the doorsill 
and watched the sun pitch down behind the 

western hills. The sense of being crowded for 
134 


FUR SIGN 


space in the swarming slums had once filled 
them with a longing for the open, and they had 
pictured themselves as roaming in vast forests, 
through the fastness of lofty mountain ranges 
or across the starlit wastes of the desert. Here 
was a touch of all three combined; for a desert 
of gray sage rolled endlessly away from their 
front door while the forested slopes of the 
hills rose just behind; and above the black 
sweep of spruce and lodgepole jungles lifted 
the ragged snow-capped peaks of the giant 
ranges. 

Yet with all this they were not quite content 
for in the background of each boy’s mind was 
the fear that this little ranch, round which all 
their hopes centered, might soon be lost to 
them. Raw furs had taken another stiff rise 
in price just before they marketed the heavy 
catch they had made in the Flint Hills and 
both boys had elected to head for the mountain 
country which was their goal instead of operat- 
ing for another season on the Clearwater. 

They had discovered that they could not ex- 
ercise their homestead rights till after reaching 
135 


FUR SIGN 


legal age, so had cast about to find a tract of 
deeded land for sale at a price within their 
means. This isolated half-section in the flats 
at the mouth of Bobcat Canyon had seemed 
the ideal spot. The land carried first water 
rights for two hundred and forty acres, the en- 
tire flow of Bobcat Creek. The original entry- 
man had done only sufficient work to permit 
his making final proof and receiving a patent 
to the two quarters. Most of the land was in 
raw sage, untouched by the plow, and the orig- 
inal cultivated tract of forty acres had lapsed 
back to the wild. 

The boys had found that irrigated land was 
high-priced. But this little tract on Bobcat 
Creek was isolated; it was forty miles from a 
railroad point and the land was in a raw state. 
All those things had operated to hold down 
the price and the owner held it for four thou- 
sand dollars. It could be bought for one thou- 
sand dollars cash payment and the balance at 
one thousand dollars a year, with eight per 
cent, interest on deferred payments. Their 

combined capital, derived from the sale of their 
136 


FUR SIGN 


fur, totaled a trifle over sixteen hundred dol- 
lars, and they had decided that they could 
handle the little ranch. But the boys were 
minors, and while they could make a contract 
they could also move to have it voided at any 
time they chose. The owner of the land had 
pointed out this fact. 

“Any time that you boys decided not to 
stand by the contract, I’d be compelled to hand 
your money back,” he said. “ Then where’d I 
be? Maybe I’d have missed a chance to make 
an actual sale in between.” 

But he had made a proposition that was sat- 
isfactory to all. Their work would be increas- 
ing the value of the land and he would be that 
much ahead in case they failed to fulfill their 
obligation. He incorporated in the contract a 
clause to the effect that in event of their failure 
to meet any deferred payment when due, he re- 
tained the right to void their agreement after 
ninety days by refunding any amounts paid on 
the contract up to that date. The partners 
had paid a thousand dollars of their slender 

capital as a first payment on the place. 

137 


FUR SIGN 


They sat in silence as the shadows deepened 
and obscured the valley. The crests of the t 
hills seemed to draw closer as their outlines , 
blackened and the last glints of light faded 
from the peaks. A great gray owl hooted 
from the rims of the canyon. A wild quaver- 
ing yelp rose from the field. Another an- 
swered from well up the slope of the hills, a 
third from far out in the flat. Then a score of 
eerie howls rose in unison, the wild music of the 
desert choir, as the coyote nation voiced their 
exultation in the falling night. 

“ It would certainly be tough to have to 
move out and leave all this, Wally,” Bob said. 

“ This little ranch is all I want in the world 
and I’d hate to lose out on it now.” 

“ We’d get our original payment back but 
that wouldn’t seem like much if we lost the 
place,” Wally agreed. “And we’d be out a 
year’s work and all the money we’ve spent get- 
ting that little patch shaped up. It looked 
easy on the start; but we miscalculated by just 
ninety per cent, some way. We need a thou- 
sand dollars and need it bad, and after we pay 
138 


FUR SIGN 


up our odds and ends we’ll have maybe a hun- 
dred left to see us through the winter — with a 
thousand-dollar payment overdue.” 

He had stated their case exactly, for his as- 
sertion was not in the least overdrawn. A few 
implements had been acquired as part of the 
place. The purchase of two geldings and two 
mares, averaging eleven hundred pounds 
apiece, and which could be used for either work 
or saddle stock, two sets of harness and a cow 
had consumed the greater part of their remain- 
ing capital. They had worked early and late 
and had plowed out a forty-acre tract, piled 
and burned the sagebrush, leveled it and 
seeded it to crop. The patch had been seeded 
with oats and alfalfa in order that the faster 
growing grain might shade the tender shoots of 
young alfalfa. This crop had been cut for hay 
before the oats matured. Seed oats and alfalfa 
seed had been costly. The fences were in poor 
repair and they had been forced to string a 
quantity of new wire to keep range stock off 
the crop. The storekeeper at Grayson, the lit- 
tle railroad town where they traded, had car- 
139 


FUR SIGN 


ried them for their supplies until the crop 
could be marketed. 

They had counted upon a good catch of fur 
during the winter but had found that this was 
a different sort of trapping than any they had 
learned in the Flint Hills. The coyotes had 
proved too cunning and had avoided their most 
artful sets. Occasionally they had caught one. 
A few bobcats had been taken in coyote traps 
and a number of badgers, but a badger pelt 
was worth little. They had found a few dens 
of big prairie skunks in the flats. All told, 
their catch had been but a fifth of that of the 
preceding year, netting a trifle over three hun- 
dred dollars. But it had helped. Their fifty 
tons of hay had been contracted to a cow outfit 
for six dollars a ton. After meeting their in- 
terest on deferred payments and settling their 
account at the store they had but a hundred 
dollars on which to winter; and the first pay- 
ment of a thousand dollars was now past due. 
Their contract could be voided at the owner’s 
will. 

“ Lawton said he wouldn’t crowd us,” Bob 
140 


FUR SIGN 


said hopefully. ‘‘ He’ll extend the time for 
another year. Pretty decent of him, I’d call 
it. But if we can’t raise the thousand in an- 
other twelve months we’re through. We’ll 
lose the place after increasing its value by two 
thousand dollars at least. We’ll have to raise 
the money. I simply refuse to believe that 
we’ve got to give up this ranch.” 

The coyote chorus had been silent but now 
the wild howls broke forth once more, sounding 
from far and near along the foot of the hills. 
Battler rose and peered off in the night, his 
hackle fur fluffing angrily. The Airedale had 
small love for these yellow cousins of the 
wild. Bob waved an arm toward the howling 
horde. 

“ There’s where we miscalculated,” he an- 
nounced. “ Because we could catch a lot of 
small fur in a country that hadn’t been trapped 
for years, and right under Kennedy’s guid- 
ance, why we thought we could come out here 
and pinch the toes of the little yellow wolves 
and we can’t.” 

The soft bawl of a calf sounded from the 
141 


FUR SIGN 


field and Wally slapped his partner on the 
back. 

“ Cheer up, old Top,” he said. “ We’ve got 
our herd started, anyway.” 

That one calf and the two colts, constituting 
the increase of their live stock, were highly 
prized by their owners. 

Three days later Dickson, the ranger, rode 
down from the hills and headed his horse across 
the flat to where the boys were breaking out a 
strip of ground next to the cultivated tract. 
He slouched sidewise in the saddle as he talked 
and his eyes kept traveling back to the four 
horses hitched to the plow. 

“Not very well matched as far as color 
goes,” he commented. “ But matched for size 
— which is all that’s required.” The two mares 
were bays. Split Ear a pinto, and Warrior — 
named for that little horse that had dragged 
their first outfit through the Flint Hills — was 
a blue roan. “ Do you ride ’em all? ” 

“ Yes,” Bob said. “ But mostly we strad- 
dle Warrior and Split Ear.” 

“ How long since you’ve been up in the 
142 


FUR SIGN 


peaks south of the sheep camp?” Dickson 
asked. 

“ Never have been there,” Bob answered. 
“ I haven’t been much farther back than where 
we marked out those trees the other day. 
We’ve been too busy ever since we moved on 
the place to do much riding round.” 

The ranger nodded, but again his eyes 
slipped back to the roan gelding and the pinto. 

“ Sometimes, when a man is needing money, 
he’ll do things he wouldn’t consider when 
things were breaking right,” Dickson com- 
mented. “ There’s been many a man decided 
he could pick up a few hundred easy dollars 
killing elk for their teeth. A pair of good bull 
tusks are worth twenty-five dollars. It don’t 
take but a few days to accumulate quite a piece 
of wealth. But folks are down on that sort of 
thing now. They can understand a man’s kill- 
ing a critter for meat, even out of season, but 
when a big bull elk is shot down for his teeth 
and left to rot, why it’s different again; they 
send folks up for a few years in the pen for 

tusk-hunting nowadays.” 

143 


FUR SIGN 


“ They should be sent up,” Bob agreed. 
“ Shooting elk for their teeth is pretty low- 
down.” 

“ Most of the elk summer farther up-coun- 
try,” the ranger said. “ But there’s always a 
scattering few, maybe a hundred head, that 
summer in the Hogback Range at the extreme 
head of Bobcat and Gravel Bar Creeks. That 
country lays eight or ten miles west of where 
the sheep outfit graze their woollies. You say 
you’ve never been up in there? ” 

“ Never have,” Bob stated. 

“ Do you know the Cole boys that herd up 
at the sheep camp? ” Dickson asked. 

Both boys denied acquaintance with the 
Coles. 

“ They don’t know you either,” the ranger 
remarked. “ Said they’d never heard your 
names before I mentioned them. I asked if 
they’d seen any one back in the hills and they 
said they’d seen two fellows riding a blue roan 
and a pinto a couple of times of late — picked 
’em up with their glasses as they crossed out on 
some shoulder above timber line.” 

144 


FUR SIGN 


“ Some one else,” Wally asserted. “ It cer- 
tainly wasn’t Bob and me.” 

“ Whoever it was has been killing elk for the 
teeth,” the ranger said. ‘‘At least the signs 
point to them. I noticed a bunch of magpies 
and ravens pitching down into a little gorge 
and went down to investigate. The bird 
flights, if you watch ’em careful, will always 
point out a carcass. I found an old bull that 
had been shot down for his teeth. Then I 
took to noticing the meat-eating birds to see 
where they congregated, and I found six more 
carcasses strung out for ten miles. A man 
can make a thousand dollars pretty easy in a 
few weeks by hunting elk for their teeth, but 
he’ll always get caught in the end. If those 
fellows operate up there any more I’ll get them 
sure. You’re a good pair of boys and I want 
to see you come out on top. I’d hate to see 
you trying that tusk-hunting game. I’m in 
the Forest Service and friendship can’t stand 
in a ranger’s way when any one starts looting 
in the Forest. Well, I’ll be sauntering on. 
Good luck.” 


145 


FUR SIGN 


He headed his horse out across the flat while 
the two boys stood gazing after him. 

“ Now do you suppose Dickson really fig- 
ures we’ve been into that mess up there? ” 
Wally asked. “ More likely he was just men- 
tioning it so we’d stay out of the hills with j 
these two horses till after he’s caught the fel- j 
lows that are riding round on mounts of the ) 
same color. He’s been a good friend to us 
ever since we hit the country.” ■ 

That night they sat as usual before the cabin j 
and listened to the coyotes. There was a cold | 
snap of frost in the air. 

“Another six weeks and the fur will prime 
up,” Wally said. “ Do you suppose we can 
learn to trap those coyotes this winter? ” 

Battler rose from the ground and peered off 
across country. Soon the boys could hear the 
steady hoofbeats of a trotting horse. There 
was a creak of wire as the horseman dropped 
the gate at the mouth of the lane. The Aire- 
dale disappeared, sliding silently away from 
the cabin. Suddenly Battler broke forth with 

a series of delighted yelps and a voice sounded 
146 


FUR SIGN 


from the night, a familiar voice which they had 
not heard for more than a year. 

“Down, Battler!” the visitor ordered. 
“You, Battler! You’ll claw the clothes off 
me.” 

Both boys jumped to their feet. 

“ Jack Kennedy! ” Bob said. 

They headed for the gate and Kennedy’s 
voice hailed them. 

“ Well, well! ” he said. “ Little old Raw- 
hide and Buckskin. I can tell your walk in 
the dark.” 


147 


VIII 


T^ENNEDY had been with them for a 
week and knew every detail of the place, 
for the boys had proudly conducted him over 
every acre of it. 

“ Your plans were all right,” he said as the 
three friends sat with their chairs tilted back 
against the cabin. “ Only you forgot how hard 
it was to raise money to meet those payments. 
It’s not every year that a trap line will pay 
like yours did last year. Everything broke 
just right; fur prices high and the country 
hadn’t been trapped. Trapping coyotes is an- 
other sort of a game.” 

“ We know that now,” Bob agreed. 

“ Otherwise your calculations were correct,” 
Kennedy said. “ Once you get the place 
shaped up it’s worth three times what you paid. 

When you get two hundred acres cleared and 
148 


FUR SIGN 


seeded to alfalfa you can cut from five to six 
hundred tons of hay every year, sell your sur- 
plus and put the money in cows. After you 
reach legal age you can each take a pasture 
homestead adjoining. There’s open range all 
around for grazing your cows in the spring. 
You can get grazing permits on the Forest 
Reserve and summer your stock back in the 
Forest. Those possibilities are right here, 
just as you figured, but it takes time and 
money to clear and shape up a piece of raw 
sage. You’ll pour in more cash than you can 
take out for the first few years; seed, lumber 
for head gates, living expenses, fencing — any 
nmnber of little items will come up and add to 
the steady stream of expenses. For the first 
three years it will hustle you to raise enough 
crop to break even. Then there’s the pay- 
ments and interest to meet on top of it all. 
Where’s the surplus coming from to buy those 
cows? If you’d had a little more capital, 
enough to pay cash for the place, or even two- 
thirds, and let the rest ride for three years, 

you’d have made it all right, but those pay- 
149 


FUR SIGN 


ments and interest may eat you up before you 
get the place cleared of brush and seeded to 
crop.” 

“ We’ll have to pay out somehow,” Bob 
stated. “No other ranch would ever quite fill 
the place of this one.” 

“ Maybe we can plan some way out,” Ken- 
nedy said. “ What I really came clear out 
here for was to take a camp hunt in the hills. 
I figured you’d soon be through breaking out 
ground and would be about ready to lay in 
your meat for the winter.” 

“ We’re through clearing brush for this 
year,” Bob agreed. “ We’ve broken out fifty 
acres next to the piece we seeded this spring. 
That’s all we’ll be able to seed down and han- 
dle next year. But we hadn’t counted on tak- 
ing a hunt, there’s so much work to be done. 
Those house logs have to be cut and peeled be- 
fore fur primes up.” 

“ I’ll show you how to save enough tkne on 
that one item to make up for the hunt,” Ken- 
nedy promised. “ There’s a trick in all trades. 

You cut those logs now, or any time through 
150 


FUR SIGN 


the winter, and you’ll find the bark growed so 
tight that it’s just like part of the wood. 
You’ll have to whittle it away with a draw- 
shave. That’s a long, hard job for the pair of 
you. If you wait till next June the bark on 
the lodgepoles will slip. A June-cut lodge- 
pole log will peel out like a banana. Then one 
of you can snatch the bark off as many logs in 
a day as the pair of you could peel now in a 
week. You need meat and lard for the win- 
ter, so we’ll go to the hills and get it. I’ll rent 
a few extra pack ponies to-morrow and the 
next day we’ll start.” 

Two days thereafter a little pack outfit filed 
up Bobcat Creek and headed for the higher 
hills. 

They found game trails threading the hills, 
affording good footing for their horses. The 
evening of the second day they made camp in 
a narrow valley. Just above the camp site the 
bottoms widened out into open meadows dot- 
ted with clumps of trees. Heavily timbered 
sidehills flanked the bottoms and lifted to 

rocky ledges that rose above timber line. It 
151 


FUR SIGN 



was an ideal camp site, for the horses could be 
turned out to graze on the meadows and if they 
should elect to make a break for home they 
would be forced to pass through the narrow 
neck near the camp and could easily be headed 
back up-country. 

“ There’s everything here to make it a good 
camp,” Kennedy said. ‘‘ Wood and water, 
good grass for the horses and an easy place to 
hold ’em so they can’t make a break for home 
and leave us afoot.” 

The two boys had fishlines wound round 
their hats and extra hooks fastened in their 
hatbands. Tliey cut willow poles and repaired 
to the creek. In half an hour they returned 
with a dozen trout for supper. 

‘‘ To-morrow we’ll hang up a piece of camp 
meat,” Kennedy predicted as they sat round 
the camp fire after the meal. “ This is the 
best game country in America, except maybe 
parts of Alaska and the Yukon. There’s more 
varieties of big game within a hundred miles of 
here than in any other place I know. Ante- 
lope in the foothills, and up here there’s deer, 
162 


FUR SIGN 


elk, moose, mountain sheep and black, brown 
and grizzly bear.” 

A clear silvery bugle note sounded from far 
back in the hills. Another answered from the 
rim of the valley. 

“ That was an old bull elk that bugled first,” 
Kennedy said. ‘‘An old herd boss likely. The 
other was younger and his voice had more of a 
squeal. We’ll have meat in camp to-morrow. 
Now since Rawhide has lost his rifle there’s 
only two guns in the outfit so we’ll have to 
draw straws and see which two of us will hunt 
to-morrow. The more I think of it the less I 
see how that rifle could have slipped out of the 
scabbard ; looks like it might have been stolen. 
Rut anyhow, two guns are enough, for one of 
us will have to tend camp every day to do the 
cooking and keep an eye on the horses.” 

The short straw fell to Kennedy, electing 
him as camp tender for the following day. 
Kennedy gave them a few points about the 
habits of different varieties of game. 

“ Bull elk and mule-deer bucks don’t stay 

with the cows and does except in the running 
153 


FUR SIGN 


moon,” he explained. “ They summer high 
up near timber line by themselves. Now that 
the bulls are bugling you’ll find an old herd 
bull bossing every band of cows, and the 
younger bulls hanging round by themselves. 
The old fellows whip the youngsters out of the 
herd. A buck deer don’t stay with one band 
of does, but mills all through the hills from one 
bunch to the next. This time of year you 
won’t find bighorn rams with the ewes, for the 
running moon of the sheep is later by several 
weeks. The ewes and lambs will be out in the 
peaks on the grassy plateaus and meadows but 
the old rams will be lower down. During the 
day you’ll find ’em bedded down on the point 
of a rim-rock or on the shelf of a cliff where 
you wouldn’t think a squirrel could find a foot- 
hold. Elk and deer rely mostly on their sense 
of smell to warn them. Their eyes are only 
fair, and if a man is standing quiet they can 
look right at him and not be able to make out 
for sure whether he’s a man or a tree stump. 
But if they catch a whiff of scent they’re off. 

A sheep hasn’t much of a nose and he doesn’t 
154 


FUR SIGN 


seem to hear over well, but he’s got a pair of 
eyes that can’t be fooled. An old ram can see 
the buttons on your shirt two miles away. 
When you try to get within range of elk or 
deer keep the wind on ’em every second; with 
a bighorn ram keep out of sight. You’ll learn 
as you go along.” 

It was just turning gray in the east when 
the two boys left camp in the morning, heading 
up the valley and taking opposite sides of the 
stream. A mile above camp Bob chose a trib- 
utary creek and turned off to the left. He 
followed game trails that traversed down-tim- 
bered sidehills and rocky shoulders, finding the 
country littered with fresh elk sign, but he 
failed to catch a glimpse of the game. Once a 
covey of blue grouse flushed from a thicket and 
the roar of wings startled him. The hills were 
full of little red squirrels and these resented his 
intrusion, barking steadily as he stole silently 
along the game trails. By noon he had crossed 
out above the tree line. The creek headed in a 
basin just at timber line, fed by hundreds of 

trickles seeping from the perpetual snowbanks. 

155 


FUR SIGN 


Elk had been crossing frequently through a 
low saddle that formed a pass through the di- 
vide to the head of another creek, the trails 
worn deep and well defined. 

Bob chose a point on the divide and for an 
hour he scanned the country with his glasses. 
The report of a heavy rifle drifted faintly to 
his ears and he knew that Wally had found 
game. He dropped down to the head of an- 
other creek that emptied into the larger stream 
on which they were camped, the confluence 
some three miles above the meadow. Elk sign 
was plentiful and once he crossed the trail of a 
few does and fawns, the prints of their tiny 
sharp-pointed hoofs showing plainly in the soft 
earth near a spring. Twice he found fresh 
bear tracks on the dusty sidehills devoid of 
vegetation and his nerves tingled at the sight 
of the broad prints in the dust. He had 
reached the bottoms where the stream had 
widened to join the main valley. All through 
the day he had been tense and alert, momen- 
tarily expecting to see game. Now a reaction 
set in. 


156 


FUR SIGN 


“ Better luck to-morrow,” he said. “ I’ll 
have to hustle if I reach camp before 
dark.” 

He chose a game trail leading through a 
dense stand of lodgepole pine and swung along 
at a brisk pace. The hunt was over for the 
day. Suddenly he came to an abrupt halt and 
stared. A coav elk had stepped into the trail 
ahead of him. Another crossed within fifty 
yards. Tawny shapes moved in the timber on 
either flank. His feet had made no sound on 
the soft dirt of the trail and the wind was just 
right ; he had walked almost into the middle of 
a band of cow elk that had risen from their 
beds to graze in the cool of the evening. His 
heart hammered wildly as he peered about for 
the bull that must be with the band. Even in 
his excitement he remembered that Kennedy 
had said that an elk’s eyes were indifferent, so 
he stood motionless. Several cows seemed to 
gaze straight at him but none detected his 
presence. The breeze eddied and a curling 
black-lash carried his scent to the cows. Big 

shapes sprang into motion and there was a 
157 


FUR SIGN 


clatter of hoof on down-logs as the animals 
hurdled the windfalls. 

A huge bull leaped into sight and halted. 
The scent had not reached him and he seemed 
unable to determine the source of the danger. 
In a second he would be off. Bob’s muscles 
seemed to cramp as he raised the rifle. The 
barrel wavered unsteadily as he lined down the 
sight. The bull was galvanized into action 
with the crash of the report. The boy fired 
again as the animal wheeled and disappeared 
in the timber. 

An hour later a disappointed hunter turned 
up at camp. His drooping spirits revived as 
he sat down to a meal of elk liver and bacon. 
Wally had scored on a young spike bull. Ken- 
nedy chuckled as Bob explained his failure. 

“ Buck fever,” he pronounced. “ Most 
folks get it at first. You’re usually pretty 
steady, Rawhide, but this surprise was too 
much and upset your nerves.” 

“ If I’d only been expecting it,” Bob re- 
gretted. 

“ It’s always when you’re least expecting it 
158 


FUR SIGN 


that you see game,” Kennedy stated. “ That 
seems to be almost a rule. You either run 
onto it just as you’re leaving camp or maybe 
after you’ve hunted all day without seeing a 
hair. You give it up for a bad job and start 
back for camp — and jump your meat. 
Maybe you’ll sit down on a log to rest and an 
elk or a deer will come sauntering along and 
nearly run over you. That’s the way it goes. 
Better luck to-morrow. There’s plenty of elk 
in the hills.” 

Bob left camp with the first streak of light, 
heading downstream. When he had covered 
a few hundred yards he stopped at the edge of 
a little park that opened out in the timber, his 
eyes trained on a rocky sidehill as he debated 
whether to climb up by that route and hunt on 
the ridges or to wait till he reached some gulch 
that led back through a break in the rims. He 
was prepared to make a strenuous day of it, 
having resolved to hunt far from camp and to 
keep on the move till sunset should drive him 
back. He decided to move on a bit farther 

before climbing the rims, took one step and 
159 


FUR SIGN 


stiffened with surprise. A mighty bull elk 
stood in the center of the open park. It 
seemed impossible that he could have failed to 
see the animal before. A massive pair of six- 
point antlers crowned the head of this monarch 
of the forest. 

The rifle wavered as he raised it but he 
steadied it and did not press the trigger till the 
sights rested on the elk’s shoulder. The roar 
of the shot filled the narrow valley and the old 
bull went down in his tracks. As he viewed 
his prize Bob decided that those massive ant- 
lers should one day adorn the walls of the new 
cabin they expected to build on the ranch. 

Kennedy did not return till an hour after 
dark. The boys were vastly excited when he 
reported killing a black bear that would weigh 
three hundred pounds ; after wounding it with 
the first shot he had followed it into a tangle of 
down-timber to finish the animal off with a 
second shot. 

The old man chuckled and shook his head 
when the boys asked if the wounded bear had 
put up a fight. 


160 


FUR SIGN 


“ There’s considerable misinformation about 
bears floating round,” he said. “A black or 
brown bear is as harmless as a pet coon. Not 
one out of a hundred will fight even if it’s 
wounded. The bear is a fine game animal and 
should be protected at certain seasons the same 
as other game, but the tales circulated by green 
hunters has made the bear an outlaw. When- 
ever a man sets up and tells you about a des- 
perate battle he’s had with a black bear you 
can figure it’s a hundred-to-one shot that he’s 
a green hand that knows mighty little about 
bear.” 

‘‘ But what about a grizzly? ” Bob asked. 

‘‘ The grizzly is a different proposition,” 
Kennedy said. “ He’ll keep out of your way 
if he can, but once you wound a grizzly, he’s 
the most dangerous beast in America. A 
wounded grizzly won’t always fight, but most 
of ’em will, and when they do turn on a man 
he has trouble on his hands a-plenty. They’re 
hard to stop, once they go on the warpath, and 
can carry a pile of lead. They’ve got brains. 

I’ve known grizzlies to circle back and lay be- 
161 


FUR SIGN 


hind a windfall jam when a man was on their 
track, then rush him just after he’d passed and 
batter him before he could turn and shoot.” 

“ Is there a chance of our getting a grizzly 
on this trip? ” Bob asked. 

“ Not likely,” Kennedy said. “ The grizzly 
is almost extinct in the States, only a scatter- 
ing few left in the western hills, and the most 
part of those are right up in this country, but 
they’re so scarce that we’re not apt to run onto 
one. If any cross through here I can maybe 
show you a track. I’d like you to see what size 
track an old grizzly makes. There was many 
a man mauled by grizzlies in the early days. /A 
few more years and they’ll all be gone.” 

Kennedy decreed that they should stop 
hunting for two days and care for their meat. 

“ It’s a poor hunter that keeps on shooting 
till he’s got so much game down that a part of 
his kill sours and spoils before he can take care 
of his meat. We’re not that kind. To-mor- 
row morning we’ll start packing the meat into 
camp.” 


162 


IX 



^HE two elk hides and the pelt of the bear 


were spread flat on the ground and the 
boys fleshed off every shred of meat, then 
poured several pounds of salt on the flesh side 
of each skin and worked it in. Kennedy fash- 
ioned a rack of poles some four feet from the 
ground and filled a kettle with hot brine. The 
elk meat had been boned and cut into strips 
four inches through by a foot or more in 
length. 

“ Now I’ll show you how to put up jerky,” 
Kennedy said when the arrangements were 
complete. “ It will keep for a year and will 
go pretty good when you’re out of fresh meat.” 

Each strip of meat was dipped for a second 
in the hot brine and suspended from the rack. 
When all the poles were full the rack was cov- 
ered with a canvas tarpaulin and a slow smudge 


163 


FUR SIGN 


fire kindled below. No heat reached the sus- 
pended meat but the dense smoke eddied 
round it. 

“ Now for our lard,” Kennedy said. “ That 
bear has a six-inch layer of fat. They’re al- 
ways fat late in the fall just before they den 
up for the winter. Bear lard is soft, so we’ll 
add a little elk tallow to give it body.” 

The fat was tried out over a slow fire, 
drained into pans and cooled at the edge of the 
creek. The elk tallow lent stiffness and body 
to the soft lard of the bear and when the mix- 
ture cooled it was dumped from the pans and 
stowed in pack panniers. This work was com- 
pleted the second day. 

“ We’ve put up three hundred pounds of 
jerky and a hundred pounds of lard,” Ken- 
nedy estimated. “ Now we’ll get some fresh 
meat to pack home; not very much, for it’s 
hard to keep this time of year, so we’ll maybe 
try for a sheep or deer and pass up the elk for 
right now. We’re each allowed two elk but 
we’ll wait till later on when cold weather sets 

in, and get the rest of our elk when we can 
164 


FUR SIGN 


quarter out the meat and hang it up to freeze. 
Then it will keep all winter.” 

A light fall of snow covered the hills during 
the night but it was melting off when Wally 
and Kennedy left camp the next morning for 
a long hike to the high pinnacles of the sheep 
country. Bob tended camp and listened for 
the sound of shooting drifting down from the 
peaks but he heard no reports which might in- 
dicate that his companions had found sheep. 
Wally and Kennedy did not return till an hour 
after dark. They had seen ewes and lambs 
with their glasses but had failed to locate a big- 
horn ram. Wally had jumped a big mule-deer 
buck in a basin just at timber line and had 
killed his game at the second shot while the 
buck was running across the open bottoms. 

The following morning Kennedy and Boh 
climbed the right-hand slope of the valley. 
Kennedy pointed out game sign as they trav- 
eled, — trees that had been gnawed by the sharp 
teeth of porcupines; rotten logs torn to pieces 
by bears in their search for gmbs and insects. 

In an aspen thicket he pointed out a dozen 
165 


FUR SIGN 


trees on which the blackened lines in the white 
bark showed healed scars made in past years 
by the claws of bears that had climbed the 
trees. Near timber line they saw scores of 
feathery young spruce trees with the bark 
torn to shreds, the limbs crushed and broken, 
the needles turning brown under the sun. 
Kennedy explained that this was the work of 
bull elk and buck deer, the animals having 
horned these trees as they staged combats with 
imaginary rivals at the start of the mating 
moon. 

They Ead allowed Battler to accompany 
them, for the Airedale’s spirits had been at low 
ebb from being forced to remain in camp. Bob 
made the dog follow close behind him, ordering 
him back each time Battler attempted to range 
off by himself. They crossed out above tim- 
ber line and hunted far back into the peaks in 
their search for sheep. Twice they sighted 
small bands of ewes and lambs but failed to 
discover a ram. 

“ We’ll take a different route going back,” 

Kennedy decided. He pointed to a basin at 
166 


FUR SIGN 


the head of a creek that flowed into the stream 
on which they were camped. “ Maybe we’ll 
run across a buck on the way in. You drop 
down into the basin and hunt the bottoms. I’ll 
follow the right-hand ridge.” 

Bob reached the first scattering clumps of 
trees at the upper extremity of the basin. He 
had temporarily forgotten the dog, for his 
mind had reverted again to the missing rifle. 
It seemed impossible that it had slipped out of 
the scabbard. The horse had acted strangely, 
angling off across the hills instead of taking his 
back track for home. The gun might have 
been stolen and the horse led off to make it ap- 
pear that the rifle had been lost while the ani- 
mal was wandering about. Battler took ad- 
vantage of his master’s preoccupation to drop 
farther behind. He nosed the wind that floated 
down the left-hand slope and his neck roach 
bristled. A scent that made him both angry 
and uneasy had drifted to his nose. It was the 
scent of some great fighting beast and the 
Airedale’s own hunting and fighting instincts 

were roused to a keen pitch. He turned off 
167 


FUR SIGN 


up the left-hand slope and found the source of 
the scent. It was a trail some hours old and the 
scent was a trifle stale. He followed it into a 
heavy patch of timber and bristled with rage. 
A shift of breeze brought the warm body scent 
from just ahead. The great beast had bedded 
down in the heavy timber of the sidehill. 

After crossing the clump of trees where 
Battler had left him, Bob found the timber less 
scattering with only occasional openings on the 
slopes. A hundred yards beyond him a solid 
belt of trees blocked the bottoms and he had 
nearly reached the edge of the timber when 
Battler opened up on the slope to the left. 
The dog’s fighting squall was answered by a 
bellowing roar. The sound reached the ears 
of another man high up on the opposite ridge 
and on the instant Kennedy was running for a 
point which would afford a view of the narrow 
valley below him. He had heard that roar be- 
fore and from his vast experience was able to 
picture exactly what had happened in the bot- 
toms. The Airedale had jumped a grizzly, 

probably had nipped him from behind before 
168 


FUR SIGN 


the bear was aware of his presence, and the old 
fellow had turned to fight. 

“ That Rawhide will start shooting the sec- 
ond he sights that bear,” Kennedy panted. 
“And then there’ll be trouble a-plenty.” He 
hoped that Bob would fail to see the grizzly, 
but even as the wish formed in his mind he 
heard the bark of a rifle. The next second he 
reached the rims and the scene he had pictured 
was spread out far below him in actuality. 

Bob had stopped in the open bottoms and 
turned his gaze uphill when the uproar 
started. A long open lane pierced the timber 
of the sidehill and a monster bear broke cover 
and started across. His dark underfur was 
shot through with long white guard hairs that 
gave the beast a grizzled, grayish appearance. 

The Airedale followed close behind ; he 
darted in and nipped the silvertip’s hind leg, 
leaping away as the bear whirled and aimed a 
mighty sweep of his forepaw at this persistent 
tormentor. 

The boy touched the trigger and the old 

grizzly fell and rolled a dozen feet downhill. 

169 


FUR SIGN 


The animal regained his feet and raked his 
claws savagely across the wound in his side, 
then sighted the figure a hundred yards below 
him in the bottoms and charged headlong down 
the hill. Bob shot twice, lining his sights on 
the breast of the charging bear, but the huge 
grizzly did not even waver in his frenzied rush. 
The Airedale raged hysterically behind him 
and twice the dog slashed the animal’s rump. 
It seemed to the boy that the beast bore down 
on him with the speed of the wind. He was 
vaguel}^ aware that from somewhere above him 
a rifle was barking at the rate of one shot a sec- 
ond. From far up on the rims Kennedy 
emptied his gun in eight seconds, although he 
knew that only a head shot or spine shot would 
halt the grizzly’s rush. His last shot smashed 
the animal’s hip, but the bear merely rolled 
over once and held on. 

Bob worked the lever, throwing in a shell for 
his fourth shot, and as he lined down the sights 
the grizzly loomed within thirty yards, his hair 
on end and a bloody froth dripping from his 

open mouth. Then Battler threw himself 
170 



BATTLER TFTREVV HIMSELF IN THE PATH OF THE 
CHARGING BEAR. Page 171 . 




V 


i A? 


FUR SIGN 


square in the path of the charging bear in a 
desperate effort to check the rush. The big 
silvertip dealt him a slap with a mighty fore- 
paw and the sidewise sweep threw the Airedale 
thirty feet through the air. Bob squeezed the 
trigger during the split second that the bear’s 
speed was lessened. The great beast went 
down and his momentum carried his body to 
the foot of the slope, the vast carcass buckling 
loosely like some half-filled sack. The heavy 
slug had drilled the bear full between the eyes. 
It seemed to Bob that an hour had elapsed 
since the grizzly had broken cover on the slope, 
but it had been scarcely ten seconds since his 
first shot was fired. His first concern was for 
Battler, who had crawled back to maul the 
dead bear. 

Up on the rims Kennedy sat down limply on 
a rock. 

“ Got him,” he said. “ The kid bored him 
through the skull as Battler slowed him up.” 
He rose and started down the slope. “ Bat- 
tler is on the move again, so that blow didn’t 

kill him, but he’ll need some patching up.” 

171 


FUR SIGN 


He found Battler with three broken ribs and 
the skin of one side badly torn. Bob volun- 
teered his shirt and Kennedy drew the edges of 
the rents together and tied the shirt round the 
dog’s body, knotting the makeshift , bandage 
along his back. Battler occasionally whined 
from the pain of his injuries but his fighting 
spirit was still intact even though his hide was 
tattered and he returned to take one last bite 
at the grizzly. 

“ We’ll sew him into a canvas jacket when 
we get back to camp,” Kennedy said. “ He’ll 
be all right in a week.” 

“ Old Battler saved my bacon,” Bob said. 
“ I’ll never forget that.” 

“And the old rascal stirred up the whole 
mess to start with and nearly got you killed,” 
Kennedy answered. He rested his hand on 
Bob’s shoulder. “ Son, you’ll never have a 
closer squeak than you did right now. One of 
your shots went straight into his chest as he 
was coming down the hill. He’d have died of 
that shot in just about one minute but the dam- 
age a grizzly can do in sixty long seconds is 
172 


FUR SIGN 


plenty. I’ve known a grizzly shot through the 
heart to maul two men in the thirty seconds he 
had left to live.” 

“ He came down that hill like a streak,” Bob 
confessed. “ I didn’t know any living thing 
could move that fast.” 

“ A bear looks clumsy and slow,” Kennedy 
said. “ Maybe you’ve heard these yarns about 
some man outrunning a bear for half a mile. 
You can put it down that the man who was 
spinning the story hadn’t seen a bear except in 
a zoo, lumbering back and forth in a cage. A 
bear looks right awkward but he can bounce 
through the hills like a rubber ball and travel 
faster in rough country than the champion 
sprinter can run on a level track. This old 
fellow covered that hundred yards after you 
shot in just about eight seconds. You did 
good steady shooting, Son, but you were lucky 
to pile him up.” 

He prodded the still form of the bear with 
his toe. 

“ He’s a monster, that fellow,” he stated. 
“ It’s likely he’s fifty years old. You want to 
173 


FUR SIGN 


save that pelt. You may never run across an- 
other and in a few years from now you’d rather 
have his hide as a reminder of this fight than 
the few dollars you’d get by selling it now. 
Well, I expect this winds up our hunt.” 


174 


X 


f NSTEAD of returning to the ranch with 
^ the others Bob had stopped over in the 
lodgepole valley where the ranger had marked 
out his logs. In three days he had cut and 
trimmed the hundred young trees which were 
to serve for corral poles and stack-yard fences. 
When the heavy snows blanketed the hills the 
poles could be snaked down the trail to the bot- 
toms. He had elected to take Kennedy’s ad- 
vice and wait till the following June to cut the 
heavier house logs at a time when the bark of 
the lodgepole would slip. When he returned 
to the ranch he found Kennedy sorting over a 
bunch of a hundred number-four traps. All 
were of the heaviest construction, solidly 
bolted, and weighing four pounds apiece. 

“ These cost a dollar apiece if you buy them 
new,” Kennedy said. “ But I picked these up 

at less than half price. Some of the pans need 
175 


FUR SIGN 


fixing and some of the chains, but I’ll tinker 
them up. How would you boys consider tak- 
ing me on for a partner for a winter of wolfing 
and split both the expenses and the catch three 
ways? ” 

Kennedy’s suggestion seemed to lift a 
weight from Bob’s mind. With Kennedy on 
the job to show them the tricks of outwitting 
the coyotes their way would be easier; their 
share of the catch might bring in enough to 
meet the payment that was overdue on the con- 
tract. 

“ Beef prices are breaking,” Kennedy ex- 
plained. “ So Brown and I decided not to 
feed out a bunch this year. If we bought a 
bunch of feeders this fall, the way the market 
is dropping, we’d maybe have to turn them for 
less than we paid after wintering them through. 
Anyway, I’m about due for a winter on the 
trap line, so we’ll give it a trial.” 

The old trapper had gathered the teeth of 
two broken hay rakes and he straightened these 
and made twenty-inch stakes of the slender 
steel rods, pointed at one end and knobbed at 
176 


FUR SIGN 


the other. He wove into each trap chain a 
ring made of several laps of heavy wire, the 
opening just large enough to hold the slender 
steel stakes without allowing the knob to pass 
through. 

“ Rake teeth make the best trap stakes,” he 
explained. “ Now there’s several angles to 
wolfing besides knowing how to set traps. A 
coyote pelt is only worth about four to five dol- 
lars, average. We ought to be able to arrange 
for enough bounty money to equal the price of 
the pelt and make double the amount on the 
same-sized catch. Every big sheep ranch or 
cow outfit in the country will be willing to pay 
from twenty-five to fifty cents a head for all 
coyotes or cats caught anywhere near their 
home range. There’s a State bounty of a dol- 
lar and a half on each scalp and a Stock Asso- 
ciation bounty of a dollar per head. Now I’ll 
ride round for a few days and visit the big out- 
fits all along the foot of the hills and find how 
much each one will add to the bounty.” 

The fourth day after Kennedy’s departure 

the boys were engaged in digging a root cellar 
177 


FUR SIGN 


in which to store their vegetables and canned 
goods for the winter. A man came down the 
trail from the hills on foot. He carried a rifle 
and walked with a slight limp. 

“ It’s Dickson,” Wally stated. “ Maybe his 
horse spilled him and left him afoot.” 

“ He wouldn’t quit till he’d caught him 
again,” Bob dissented. 

“ But he walks like his leg had been in a 
smash, maybe jammed against a tree, so he 
couldn’t follow his horse.” 

They walked out to meet the ranger. Dick- 
son’s right trouser leg was caked with blood 
below the knee. 

“ This your gun? ” he demanded briefly, 
pointing to the initials carved in the stock. 

“ Yes,” Bob said, reaching out for the rifle. 
“ How did you run across that? And what’s 
wrong with your leg? Come on up to the 
house and tell us about it while I get you a bite 
to eat. I’m right glad to see that gun. I lost 
it a few weeks ago up in the hills.” 

“ I expect you wish now you had lost it,” the 

ranger observed. “ Too thin. Bob ; it won’t 
1Y8 


FUR SIGN 


wash. This is not on the Reserve, so I can’t 
make an arrest. I’ll have to swear out a war- 
rant and have the sheriff come get you if you 
don’t choose to go in with me.” 

“ If you want me for anything you won’t 
need the sheriff,” Bob answered. “ But what’s 
all this about? You’re joking, I reckon.” 

“ If you think it’s a joke to shoot a man’s 
horse out from under him with a spring-gun 
and take a nick out of his leg, why then your 
idea of a frolic is different than mine.” 

“A spring-gun,” Bob said. “ Set with this 
gun? ” 

“ Set on the trail half a mile beyond where 
you were camped cutting poles a few days 
ago,” the ranger stated. “ With a vine 
stretched across six inches above the trail. But 
I guess you know. If I’d happened to have 
been walking and leading my horse that slug 
would have caught me in the armpit instead of 
nicking my leg and drilling my horse through 
the shoulders.” 

“ But why should I set a gun for either you 

or your horse? ” Bob queried. 

179 


FUR SIGN 


“ You didn’t, of course,” the ranger re- 
turned. “ You set it for elk. It’s against the 
State laws to set a spring-gun anywhere in the 
hills. It might have been different if you’d 
planted it off in some pocket where a man 
don’t get once in a year, but no one but a green 
hand in the hills would stick it down on a For- 
est Service pack trail that’s traveled an aver- 
age of once every week. I passed up that 
tusk-hunting deal a while back, for there was a 
good chance that I might be mistaken ; and you 
boys had worked like two slaves trying to make 
both ends meet. I gave you the benefit of the 
doubt, for I wanted to see you make good. 
It’s cost me a good horse. Maybe after you’ve 
paid a stiff fine you’ll learn a few things.” 

The ranger was in no mood to listen to Bob’s 
explanation of having lost the gun weeks be- 
fore. He had been jarred by the fall, had lost 
a good horse and had walked several miles with 
a wounded leg. A long ride to Grayson 
loomed ahead. 

“ Come on, if you’re going with me,” he said, 

waving Bob’s explanation aside. “ It’s your 
180 


FUR SIGN 


privilege to refuse and I’ll send out the sheriff. 
I suppose you’ll lend me a horse.” 

Half an hour later Wally stood and watched 
Bob ride away with the ranger. 

“ I don’t know yet just how all this hap- 
pened,” he said to Battler. “ But Bob didn’t 
do it and some one else did. That much is cer- 
tain. I haven’t the faintest sort of an idea 
who it was, but some day I’ll know.” 

The next morning Bob appeared in a Jus- 
tice Court in Grayson to answer to the charge 
of setting a spring-gun. He had no theory as 
to how the gun might have been set so at- 
tempted no explanation, merely stating the 
fact of the rifle having been lost or stolen a few 
weeks before. Dickson’s ill-humor had largely 
worn off during the night. He did not add 
the killing of elk for their teeth to the charge 
and no mention was made of it. The Justice 
imposed a fine of one hundred dollars and ad- 
monished Bob against such criminal reckless- 
ness as setting a spring-gun and endangering 
human life. He explained that Dickson had 

interceded in Bob’s behalf and asked that a 
181 


FUR SIGN 


light fine be imposed instead of binding him 
over for trial, the consequences of which might 
be more serious and would most certainly 
prove more expensive. The boy knew that the 
fine was a light one in view of the fact that he 
was supposed to have killed a horse and 
wounded a man while violating a law. The 
fine would wipe out their bank account, but he 
knew no other way than to pay it. 

There was a clatter of hoofs in the single 
street of the little sun-baked town and Wally 
and Kennedy dropped from their horses before 
the door. 

An hour later the two boys rode out of town. 
Kennedy and the ranger followed a few yards 
behind. Bob’s case had been appealed. 

“ Maybe I acted a mite too quick,” the 
ranger confessed to Kennedy. “ But I was 
considerable stirred up when that gun went off 
— and Bob couldn’t give any explanation ex- 
cept that he’d lost it.” 

“ Which he did,” Kennedy asserted. “ I 
know that for a fact. If he’d set that gun 

himself he’d have had a plausible yarn to tell 
182 


FUR SIGN 


about how he didn’t. But he was so dazed 
that he only kept repeating that the rifle had 
been lost. No man but a rank idiot or a thug 
would plant a spring-gun on that trail, and 
Bob’s got brains. Some one either set that 
plant for Bob or to try and make him trouble.” 

“ But who? ” the ranger demanded. 
“ There’s nobody up in there.” 

“ I can’t even make a guess as to the party 
or his reasons,” Kennedy admitted. “ On the 
surface it appears downright improbable, I’d 
have thought the same way you did — only I 
happen to know different. The trial won’t be 
till spring and in the meantime I’ll find out 
who there is in the country with a grievance 
against Bob. Then we’ll check him up.” 

The ranger turned off and Kennedy joined 
the boys. The following day Kennedy and 
Bob rode back into the hills and pitched a tem- 
porary camp near the spot where the spring- 
gun had been set. 

“ If this was back in the Flint Hills we’d 
know who to look for,” Bob asserted. “ We’d 

know it was the Neils.” 

183 


FUR SIGN 


“ The Neils aren’t back in the Flint Hills 
now,” Kennedy said. “ Not with a warrant 
out against them for robbery. They haven’t 
been seen since we raided their camp in the 
swamp. They know this country and might 
have jumped back out here, but the Neils 
aren’t the kind to take a chance just for the 
sake of an old grudge. They’d have to see 
money in it for them.” 

A camp fire was kindled and the two sat on 
a down-log. 

“ Now let’s go over this,” Kennedy said. 
“And to-morrow we’ll ride for some sign. 
Who was up in here about the time your horse 
was led off and the rifle lifted? ” 

“ Not a soul that I know of,” Bob answered. 
“ The nearest were the men up at the sheep 
camp. That’s twenty miles. I never saw 
them and don’t know them at all.” 

“ This side is closed to sheep,” Kennedy 
said. “ The herders wouldn’t be down this 
slope at all. Their home ranch is way off 
across the Redpin Spur, where the main range 

swings off to the north, sixty odd miles from 
184 : 


FUR SIGN 


here. They wouldn’t have any interest in you. 
That lets them out. Has any one ever tried to 
buy out your ranch? ” 

Bob shook his head, 

“ It can’t be some outfit that wants to see 
you lose out so you won’t encroach on their 
range,” Kennedy said. “ They wouldn’t work 
it this way. There’s a hundred easier methods 
a big outfit could use to break you and get you 
out of the country. If you were homesteading 
it might be that ; but your place is deeded land, 
and some one will own it, anjrway. That can- 
cels that lead. It can’t be anything but a per- 
sonal matter, some one that holds a grudge 
against you. Who runs their cows up here 
summers and grazes most of the stock on the 
range round near you? ” 

“ The McIntyres,” Bob informed. “ Their 
ranch is on the next creek west of Bobcat, 
about twelve miles from our place. The two 
McIntyre boys are the best friends we’ve got. 
They’re about our own age.” 

“ Their outfit must have riders through here 

now and then to look over the cows that they 
185 


FUR SIGN 


throw up here to summer on the Forest,” Ken- 
nedy said. 

“ Not often,” Bob returned. “ The cows 
never cross over the divide but stay on this 
slope and they comb them out in the fall. But 
they had them all off the Forest before that 
gun was set.” 

“ Whoever set it there right next to your 
camp was out after you, in which case Wally 
would pull out of the country, or if any one 
else got hurt by the plant it would get you boys 
in trouble. Some one wants to get rid of you, 
but it’s mighty indefinite who or why. To- 
morrow we’ll look the ground over.” 

The next day they scoured the hills near the 
spot and as they rode Kennedy read the signs 
of the forest floor. No disturbance of pine 
needles or displacement of rock was too slight 
to challenge his interest. It was well into the 
afternoon before he found a sign that proved 
of possible importance. He pulled up his 
horse and pointed to a groove in the pine 
needles that carpeted the ground. 

“ Some one’s been picking up dead sticks for 
186 


FUR SIGN 


a fire,” he asserted. “ Get off and we’ll pros- 
pect around.” 

There were a number of grooves where small 
sticks had formerly rested. 

“ Whoever it was didn’t want to use an ax 
so he picked up scraps,” Kennedy said. “ It 
was done this summer, since the snow melted 
off. Otherwise these little grooves would have 
been filled in solid. But it was done some time 
back, for a few pine needles and trash have 
partway covered them up.” 

At one edge of the little rocky gulch they 
found the ashes of the fire. 

“ He laid out here all night,” Kennedy in- 
formed. “ Between the rock wall and the fire, 
so the rocks would refiect the heat back. That 
means he didn’t have a bed roll. The fire was 
built before we had that little shift of snow 
while we were hunting; the ashes have been 
packed down by moisture; so he didn’t camp 
here the night the spring-gun was set; more 
likely about the time the rifle was lifted. His 
horse is a big one — wore number two shoes.” 

Kennedy pointed to the horse tracks around 
187 


FUR SIGN 


the camp. “ Here’s where he hung his saddle 
blanket over this down-log. It’s littered with 
white hair. He was riding a white horse or a 
very light gray. There’s a picket pin out in 
that little open park where he picketed his 
horse for the night. It’s right queer I can’t 
find as much as a heel print to see what sort of 
footgear he wore. Looks certain he’d leave a 
few tracks round the spring or in some bare 
patch of dirt, but it seems that he stepped 
mighty light. Now it’s a good bet that who- 
ever camped here lifted your gun and later 
came back and set it. What one of your 
friends rides a white horse? ” 

“ None that I know of,” Bob said. 

“ A pinto with a white patch on his back? ” 
Bob shook his head. 

“ Well, maybe we’ll pick up some other 
sign,” Kennedy said. But after thoroughly 
scouting the country for another full day they 
had failed to find another trace of the man. 
They broke camp and returned to the ranch. 


188 


XI 



HE cold days had come and fur was 


prime. The low country was free of 
snow but the higher hills were one solid glare 
of white when Kennedy and the boys rode 
from the ranch to throw out their first trap 
line. Each one led a pack horse loaded with 
traps and bait. The bait was in the shape of 
big strips of horse meat with the hide left on, 
averaging ten pounds apiece. 

‘‘ Don’t spare bait in trapping coyotes,” 
Kennedy counseled. “ Round every outfit 
there’s an occasional animal that gets crippled 
up and has to be killed. Now that we’re wolf- 
ing we’ll be needing bait and every rancher will 
notify us when they have a horse or beef critter 


killed.” 


Just outside the fence he chose an opening 
in the sagebrush. A space of twenty yards 
across was devoid of vegetation except for an 
occasional tuft of grass or a weed. 


189 


FUR SIGN 


Kennedy swung from his horse and stood in 
one spot without moving about. With his 
trapping ax he dug a triangular bed for the 
trap, making the excavation a trifle over two 
inches deep. He inserted a steel stake in the 
small wire ring he had fashioned and drove it 
to the head in the bottom of the hole, then 
placed the trap in the bed, both springs bent 
well back. He produced a small piece of can- 
vas cut a trifle larger than the spread of the 
trap jaws. 

‘‘ Most trappers put cloth or paper across 
the whole trap and cover it,” he explained. 
“ But that makes considerable weight for the 
springs to lift. This is a scheme of my own.” 
He placed the canvas over the pan and under 
the jaws. A slit four inches long had been cut 
in the cloth at one side. This fitted over the 
dog, leaving it free to work. Then he covered 
the trap with the earth removed from the hole, 
adding a top layer of dust. The gaping jaws 
lay flat, less than half an inch below the sur- 
face. He made a similar set six feet away and 

between the two traps he placed a large chunk 
190 


FUR SIGN 


of bait, wiring it to a stake driven out of sight 
in the ground. Not once had he stepped out 
of the space between the two traps. When 
the sets were complete he blotted out the small 
patch of tracks with a piece of sagebrush and 
swung to his horse. Leaning from his saddle 
he touched out every remaining footprint with 
the tip of the brush, then fanned the surface 
dust into curling eddies that settled back over 
the spot till the surface was uniform. No man 
could point out the site of the traps. 

“ You can’t fix up a nice set when there’s 
only one inviting lane to the bait; not for a 
coyote,” Kennedy explained as they rode on. 
“ He just naturally refuses to go into it. The 
best sort of a set is right out in the open. He’ll 
know there’s a trap somewheres close for he’s 
too smart to think that bait happened there by 
accident, but he figures he’s clever enough 
to spot the trap and get away with your 
meat. There’s an even break that he’ll 
do it, but there’s also a good chance that 
while he’s messing around he’ll get himself 
caught.” 


191 


FUR SIGN 


Kennedy had set the traps with his bare 
hands and gave his reasons. 

“ Don’t be misled by these fellows who ad- 
vise you to scent up your traps and wear 
scented gloves to blot out the man scent,” he 
counseled. “ A dog can follow an animal’s 
track at a run if it’s hot, or work it out slow 
when it’s a few hours old, but he’ll cross a cold 
track without knowing. Common sense will 
tell you that the same thing applies to the scent 
of your hands on a trap. The man smell will 
freeze out overnight. Any scent that’s for- 
eign to the range and that lingers on round 
your trap will only make it a certainty that a 
coyote will spot it. The man who tells you 
about smoking your traps and scenting up 
your gloves and your boot soles is no wolfer; 
he just thinks he is, but you’ll find he never 
brings in many pelts.” 

The first line was to be strung along the base 
of the hills. Numerous gulches broke back 
into them and the fioors of these little canyons 
were covered with a heavy growth of sage and 

occasional clusters of cedars and cottonwoods. 

192 


FUR SIGN 


Kennedy turned aside and rode two hundred 
yards up a gulch. 

“ Bobcats will work these brushy bottoms 
for rabbits,” Kennedy said. “ So will the 
coyotes. Now I’ll show you a cat set.” 

He chose a spot where the gulch pinched 
down to a narrow neck, selecting a natural bait 
pen where an opening some three feet long by 
two in width showed among the trunks of a 
cedar thicket. A few sticks completed the pen 
and he set a trap at the mouth of it, a piece of 
bait wired in the rear. From one of the pack 
panniers he produced a sack filled with scraps 
of rabbit skins and fastened several strips on 
the brush where they would fiutter in the wind. 
The trap was lightly covered with the trash 
that had accumulated under the cedars and 
sagebrush. 

“A coyote wouldn’t go near that set,” he 
informed the boys. “ But a bobcat is as near 
brainless as any fur critter I know. He’ll step 
right on an uncovered trap two thirds of the 
time. The only trouble is to attract his atten- 
tion. A cat hunts mostly by sight and he 
193 


FUR SIGN 


can’t smell a bait at ten feet that a coyote 
would wind at a hundred yards. These rabbit 
skins fluttering will catch a cat’s eye as he 
comes through this neck and he’ll get to poking 
about and find the bait. Then he’s our cat, 
for he’ll step right into the trap.” 

Kennedy made two more sets for coyotes 
while the boys looked on and noted every de- 
tail. Cow trails threaded the dips and saddles 
of the ridges and he selected open spots in 
these natural crossings or on exposed slopes 
never far from some cow path. In such places 
the wind had a clear sweep and would scour off 
the snow after each storm before it had time 
to melt and soak the surface earth with the 
consequent freezing-down of the traps. 

At the next site he instructed Bob to make 
a set of his own, then rode on with Wally, leav- 
ing him to set a trap in the dip of a ridge half a 
mile beyond while he rode on to make a third 
set himself. By this system of overlapping 
they were able to cover a big stretch of coun- 
try. Nightfall found them a trifle over 

twenty miles from the ranch with thirty good 
194 


FUR SIGN 


sets strung out behind them. A deserted log 
cabin stood near a spring-creek at this point 
and made a good overnight camp. 

The following morning they held on for five 
miles along the foot of the hills, then swung 
away from them and circled back toward the 
cabins. This second line, when completed, 
was in the form of a pear-shaped loop with the 
cabin as a base. The third day they headed 
back toward the ranch, paralleling their route 
of the first day but keeping some five miles out 
from the foot of the hills. 

All this was to constitute one man’s trap line 
for the winter. Kennedy appointed Bob to 
take over this route while he and Wally should 
throw out a similar string of traps the oppo- 
site way from the ranch. Bob could ride one 
day to the cabin and stay overnight, run the 
short loop be^mnd on the second, which would 
give his horses a rest, and ride the outer string 
back to the ranch the third day. 

Bob packed a bed roll and a supply of food 
which would be left at the overnight cabin. 

His hopes were high as he neared the first set 
195 


FUR SIGN 


but it was undisturbed. A dead magpie 
graced the cat trap up the gulch and he ex- 
tracted the bird and reset the trap. The bait 
at the third set had been stolen by a coyote 
that had located one trap, raised it sufficiently 
to expose the end of a spring and decamped 
with the bait. The next trap held a badger 
and the animal had dug up the earth to the 
depth of ten inches within the radius which the 
trap chain allowed him to range. The boy 
killed the badger and changed the set to a spot 
two hundred yards farther on. Not until al- 
most a third of the line had been covered did 
he find a coyote fast in a trap. It was a big 
old dog coyote and the torn earth round the 
spot testified to the fact that he had made a 
strenuous fight to escape. These hill coyotes 
were much larger than those of the prairie 
country farther east, their fur longer and finer 
and the most of them had a dark strip down 
the back. 

A huge bobcat waited for him in the next 
trap and greeted him with a spitting snarl as 

he dropped from his horse. The rest of the 
196 


FUR SIGN 


line yielded but one pelt and he reached the 
overnight cabin with two coyotes, a cat and a 
badger. Bob rode the short loop the next day 
and on the third took the outer line back to- 
ward the ranch. He found that Wally and 
Kennedy had reached home an hour before his 
arrival, having completed a trap line for 
Wally. Bob displayed his catch of a badger, 
two cats and three coyotes. 

Bob spent every third night at the home 
ranch, meeting Wally there as his partner 
came in from his three-day round of the oppo- 
site line. Kennedy had thrown out two loops 
extending out into the flats and he rode out 
one string every alternate day, spending the 
off days at the ranch. On the nights when the 
three were together they compared notes and 
experiences of the trap lines. 

The two McIntyre boys learned that all 
hands were in from the trap line every third 
night and they frequently rode over to spend 
an evening, riding the long miles back to their 
own ranch in the night. Wally and Bob were 

working early and late at their traps in order 
197 

I 


FUR SIGN 


to raise the money which would enable them 
to pay out on the ranch and remain in these 
hills far from the city. Art and Joe McIntyre, 
having always lived on a ranch in this country, 
were working as hands for their father to raise 
the money which would enable them to go and 
make a start in the city. 

“ By next spring we’ll likely have enough 
funds to leave,” Art McIntyre announced one 
evening. 

“ And by next spring we’re hoping to have , 
enough funds to stay,” Bob said. “ I don’t 
see why any one would ever leave this country 
to live in some crowded town.” | 

“ And I don’t see why any one would be \ 
simple-minded enough to leave a good town 
and come out here to live in the sagebrush and 
cactus,” Art countered. “ You work early and 
late on a ranch; plowing, irrigating, putting 
up hay and riding the range of summers ; cut- 
ting and hauling wood, fixing fence and feed- ' 
ing stock of winters. That’s life on a ranch.” 

“ In the city you’ll hole up in one little i] 
room,” said Bob. “ You’ll work long hours six I 
•198 I 


FUR SIGN 


days every week, regardless of season, and 
worry yourself sick wondering if your pay 
check at the end of the week will cover your 
room rent and a meal ticket at some third-rate 
beanery. Maybe every six months you’ve 
saved enough to buy a new suit of clothes and 
a necktie. Nothing but windows and stone 
walls and hot pavements; nothing green but 
transplanted trees and little patches of lawn 
that you can’t step on without getting arrested. 
Out here you’ve got the whole world to range 
on.” 

“ Yes,” Art agreed. “ A whole world with 
nothing in it but solitude, sagebrush and sheep. 
You won’t find those in the city.” 

“ No,” said Bob. “ Back there you’ll find 
nothing but grief.” 

Neither pair of boys could quite understand 
the opposite longings of the others and many 
friendly arguments resulted. It seemed to 
Bob that no one could possibly give up 
the free life of the open for the hustle and 
strife of the city; for the spell of the sage coun- 
try and the giant hills had claimed him. Win- 
199 


PUR SIGN 


ter had tightened down in earnest and the 
range was gripped by bitter cold. Some days 
he rode his trap line in a whirl of soft white 
flakes, the next in a screeching gale as the 
after-storm winds tore at the blanket of snow, 
scouring it from the open and piling it in great 
drifts in the gulches or down-wind from the 
heavier thickets of sage. There were gray 
days when leaden clouds were low-flying and 
particles of sleet hurtled on the wings of the 
wind and stung his cheeks. On such days all 
living things sought cover; there was no sign 
of life; no sound save the shriek of the gale 
and the hiss of wind-driven sleet in the sage- 
brush. There were days of calm when not 
even a breeze rustled the bare limbs of the cot- 
tonwoods in the gulches, when the sun shed a 
white light that was quite without warmth but 
seemed instead to help drive the bitter frost 
deeper into his bones. There were times when 
the meat supply was running low and he would 
take a day off from the duties of the trap line 
and hunt far back into the hills. Here the 

solid white drifts lay banked deep in the tim- 
200 


FUR SIGN 


ber. Occasional chinooks broke the spell of 
winter, their hot winds fanning the hills and 
thawing the surface of the drifts, bringing 
false promises of spring that were soon crushed 
out as winter clamped down once more and re- 
claimed her own. And Bob loved every phase 
of it, felt himself a part of it all, his moods 
varying to accord with every shift of nature. 

Their catch mounted higher day by day. 
Every cat or coyote would add at least nine 
dollars to it, for almost every outfit in the 
vicinity had agi’eed to pay a small individual 
bounty on every scalp. The total bounty 
money would equal the average price of a pelt. 

! The main run of the catch consisted of coyotes, 
i about four to every cat. Badgers numbered 
j about the same as the bobcats but their pelts 
i would bring less than two dollars apiece. Oc- 
: casionally a fox strayed down from the high 
) bald ridges of the peaks and stepped in a 
■ coyote trap. Most of the foxes were reds but 
I Wally returned from one round with the pelt 
of a very dark cross fox which would bring 

:! fifty dollars on the market. 

201 


FUR SIGN 


As the winter advanced the remaining 
coyotes grew more and more trap-wise and 
their catch was accordingly lessened but Bob 
knew that with even fair success the balance 
of the season their two-thirds’ share of the 
catch would bring almost enough money to 
meet the overdue payment. But through it all 
a mist of uneasiness hung over him. 

Their contract could now be voided at the 
will of the owner and Lawton had made only a 
verbal agreement to extend the time. If he 
had a good opportunity to make a more ad- 
vantageous sale he might change his mind and 
void their agreement by returning their orig- 
inal payment and sell the ranch to some other 
party. Even provided they met the payment 
it would leave them without money for cur- 
rent expenses to seed down the new clearing 
to hay. And on top of it all was the charge 
hanging over him. It would cost a neat sum to 
fight the case even if he were cleared of the 
charge; and Kennedy had been unable to find 
a single scrap of evidence which would clear 
him. 


202 


FUR SIGN 


Kennedy had carefully sized up every man 
in the vicinity and had attempted to pick the 
one who would benefit by getting the boys out 
of the country but his investigations resulted 
in a blank. The few scattered neighbors were 
universally friendly toward the two boys and 
Kennedy was obliged to confess to himself that 
he had failed in his quest to find proof that Bob 
had not set the spring-gun. 

In February Bob came in with a coyote hide 
that showed rubbed spots. Wally returned 
from his line with two of the same grade of 
pelts. 

“ The season is over,” Kennedy stated. 
‘‘ Coyotes are among the first critters to show 
rubbed pelts in the spring. Another week and 
our whole catch would be shedders. On the 
next round we’ll spring all our traps.” 


203 


XII 



HE drifts lay deep in the higher hills and 


would linger there till midsummer. 
After the trapping season was over the boys 
turned their attention to the poles Bob had cut 
the preceding fall, snaking them down the 
snow-covered pack trail to the bottoms. A 
solid new corral was built near the house, the 
creek running through one corner of it. By 
the time this work was completed the flats had 
cleared of snow, except for a few drifts in the 
gulches, and the frost was out of the ground. 

The forty they had seeded the year before 
turned faintly green and the three friends 
walked down to the field to inspect this first 
evidence of spring. 

“ You’ve got a good heavy stand of alfalfa 
on this forty,” Kennedy said. “ It ought to 
cut a hundred tons of hay this year. You’ll 
get two full cuttings; maybe a third.” 


FUR SIGN 


The piece they had broken out the past fall 
adjoined the alfalfa meadow. 

“ You’ll get that seeded to oats and alfalfa 
this spring,” Kennedy said. “ And cut it over 
for hay just before the oats ripen. That will 
give you another forty tons or more. If you 
get as good a stand of alfalfa on that piece as 
you did on this forty you’ll be putting up a 
big cut of hay next year.” 

Bob nodded but his mind was concerned 
with another angle of the problem. The boys’ 
share of their winter’s catch of fur, including 
bounty, had brought within a few dollars of 
enough to meet the first payment on their con- 
tract. If they attempted to seed down the new 
ground at once it would be costly and leave 
them several hundred dollars short. 

“ Maybe it would be better to turn the 
money over to Lawton and let the seeding of 
this piece slide for another year,” Bob said. 
“ It will leave us flat broke but the storekeeper 
at Grayson will carry us for what few supplies 
we need until we cut our hay.” 

“ Better get it under crop,” Kennedy ad- 
205 


FUR SIGN 


vised. “ If Lawton insists on a payment be- 
fore you sell your hay I’ll lend you whatever 
little difference there is between what you’ve 
got and what you owe.” 

Kennedy saddled a horse and rode away 
from the ranch. Two days later he returned 
and drove thirty head of cows into the corral. 

“ That’s all young she stock,” he said. 
“ They’ll all calve this spring. The beef mar- 
ket is down now and I picked these up cheap. 
I’ve got a deal to put up to you. You boys 
run this little bunch of cows for four years and 
we’ll split the bunch in half.” 

“ But how will we pay you for our share? ” 
Wally asked. “ We’re in too deep now.” 

“ There’s times when a deal can be made 
without money and yet be profitable to both 
parties,” Kennedy said. “ This is one of that 
kind. You’ve got good free spring and fall 
range all around you; you can get permits to 
summer stock on the Forest and you’ve got 
hay for winter feed. You’ll have more hay 
every year — but you haven’t the money to buy 

cows. I can buy the cows but haven’t the feed, 
206 


FUR SIGN 


and besides I don’t want to tie myself down 
with running a ranch of my own. I’d rather 
be free to wander around. I’ll buy the cows 
and you furnish the feed. You can sell all 
your hay but just enough to winter them 
through. At the end of four years we’ll split 
the bunch in half. I’ll have made a profit and 
you’ll be in the game for yourself with a nice 
bunch of cows. There’s been many a deal like 
this made on the range and if both parties play 
square it works out in good shape. If you 
were in a country where you had to feed under 
fence the whole year you couldn’t afford to 
take on this deal, but out here you’ll have free 
grass for seven months out of the year.” 

For an hour the two boys sat on the top bar 
of the con-al and feasted their eyes on the little 
bunch of cows. 

“ We’d have lasted about three weeks that 
first fall if Kennedy hadn’t run across our 
camp in the Flint Hills and showed us the 
ropes,” Bob said. “ Now he’s trying to pull 
us out of this hole too ; and it looks like he will 

if we can hang on for another year. But 
207 


FUR SIGN 


there’s so much we hadn’t figured on.” He 
shook his head, remembering that his trial was 
but three weeks away. ‘‘ I suppose after that’s 
over we’ll find that those fellows are killing 
elk again for the teeth and I’ll be suspected of 
tusk hunting.” 

Kennedy had come up behind them and 
overheard this last remark. 

“ Tusk hunting,” he said. “ Who is kill- 
ing elk for the teeth? Say that over again. 
Son.” 

Bob gave the details as the ranger had given 
them to him. 

“ Didn’t I tell you? ” he finished. 

“ No,” Kennedy said. “ You didn’t tell me. 
After all the pains I’ve gone to, teaching you 
to read sign and explaining how every scratch 
or overturned rock means something in the 
hills, why you just go and forget to mention 
the one thing that would have got me lined out 
on who set that spring-gun. I’m surprised at 
you. Son, for a fact.” 

“ But that happened way in south of the 

sheep camp,” Bob said. ‘‘Likely some men 
208 


FUR SIGN 


just riding through. They never showed up 
again.” 

“ No,” Kennedy said. “ Naturally they 
wouldn’t — not if my guess is correct. It’s my 
surmise that they never even showed up the 
first time. Maybe now I’ve got something to 
work on. Do you know any outfit with a pair 
of horses the same color as yours? ” 

There’s quite a few pinto horses around,” 
Bob said, “ But I don’t know of another blue 
roan.” 

“ Now it’s a safe bet tSose fellows up at the 
sheep camp killed those elk — way back in 
pockets where no one would be apt to run onto 
the carcasses. Then when the ranger asked 
them if they’d seen any men in the hills they 
remarked about seeing two riders on a blue 
roan and a pinto. It came up perfectly nat- 
ural, especially when they told Dickson they’d 
never heard of you boys. But they had. They 
wanted to cause you some trouble. Other- 
wise they’d have invented some horses that 
were commonplace in looks and couldn’t be 
traced.” 


209 


FUR SIGN 


“ But why should they want to stir up trou- 
ble for us?” Bob demanded. “We’ve never 
even seen them or been within fifteen miles of 
their camp.” 

“ The reason don’t show on the surface,” 
Kennedy said. “ But it’s there. Sounds sort 
of im]3robable, don’t it? But who set that 
spring-g\m? We’ve never found a reason for 
that, but we know it was set. The man that 
invented the yarn about those horses was the 
one that set the gun. It’ll have to work out 
like that. We’ve sifted down every other lead 
and met a blank wall. Saddle up and we’ll 
ride over to Dickson’s.” 

Kennedy explained the situation to the 
ranger. 

“ It looks unreasonable that those sheepmen 
would have any point in doing all this,” he 
confessed. “ But it’s dead certain some one 
set that spring-gun right next to Bob’s camp, 
and it’s logical to suppose that he’s the same 
one that told you about seeing riders back 
where those elk were shot down for their teeth. 
It’s got to be him.” 


210 


FUR SIGN 


“ Well, maybe,” the ranger admitted doubt- 
fully. “ But what’s his idea? ” 

“ Bob’s gun was stolen the day you marked 
out his logs,” Kennedy said. “ Then you rode 
on to the sheep camp. Try and think back. 
Were all the men there when you got there, or 
was one of them missing? ” 

‘‘ Let’s see,” the ranger reflected. ‘‘ The 
two herders were out with two different bands, 
opposite ways from the camp. The cook 
wasn’t there to tell me which way to look for 
the herders; for I remember I had to locate 
them by the sound of the sheep — easy enough 
because you could hear ’em blat for three miles. 
I stayed with each one for more than an hour. 
I expect it was nearly four hours by the time 
I got back to the camp. It was turning off 
dusk, I remember, and the herders were work- 
ing their bands back toward the bedground. 
The cook had come in but he hadn’t been back 
very long for his horse was still saddled.” 

“ Was he riding a white horse? ” Kennedy 
interrupted. 

“ That’s what he was,” Dickson said. 

211 


FUR SIGN 


“ A big horse that would wear number two 
shoes? ” the old trapper inquired. 

“ It was a sizeable horse, for a fact,” the 
ranger agreed. “ And would likely take a 
number two shoe — though I didn’t notice for 
sure. But how did you know? ” 

Kennedy told him of the signs he had found 
round the camp where the stranger had stayed 
a night in the gulch. Then his mind reverted 
to another point — to the fact that he had been 
unable to find a single boot print around that 
scene. 

“ Just a minute,” he said. “ Did that cook 
ever wear shoe-pacs or moccasins? ” 

“ He had on a pair of pacs that day,” Dick- 
son testified. “ Ankle-height moccasins; that’s 
what he wore.” 

“ He’s the man,” Kennedy stated. “ You 
don’t happen to know his whereabouts a day 
or two before you rode into that spring-gun? 
Was he missing from camp? ” 

“ The camp was closed,” Dickson said. 
“ That was ten days after the date that sheep 

can stay on the Forest. They’d worked their 
212 


FUR SIGN 


bands down to the ranch. All three of the men 
went with the sheep.” 

“ One of ’em came back,” Kennedy asserted. 
“ Or cut across after they’d started and over- 
hauled them next day. What sort of a looker 
is this camp cook? Maybe the boys would 
recognize his description.” 

“ He’s a queer-built little runt,” Dickson 
said. “ With dumpy legs and a head too big 
for his body. He’s ” 

“ Bantam Neil! ” both boys announced. 

“ Likely,” Kennedy said. “ Our old fur- 
thief friend from the Santag. It’s natural 
enough for the Neils to come back to this coun- 
try when they ducked out of the Flint Hills. 
Two Buttes, where they hung out before, is 
clear at the far end of the State, so no one 
would know them up here. And now their 
name’s Cole. Who’s the third man at the 
camp? ” 

“ A cousin,” Dickson informed. “ I don’t 
recall his name.” 

“ It don’t matter,” Kennedy said. “ He’s 

one of the breed so he wouldn’t hamper their 
213 


FUR SIGN 


actions. If it’s the Neils they’d naturally want 
you out of the country so you wouldn’t run 
onto them and have them picked up on that 
robbery charge. Likely they knew you’d been 
having a hard time paying up and figured a 
few added troubles would finish you off. But 
it would have been simpler for them to have 
quit that sheep-herding job and moved on 
themselves. It’s not like the Neils to care 
much about holding onto a job. There must 
be some reason why they want to stay with that 
job — and dollars are the only reasons the 
Neils recognize. To-morrow we’ll head for the 
sheep ranch and maybe we’ll find what that 
reason is.” 

The following day they rode off along the 
foot of the hills and stopped overnight at a 
ranch a little more than halfway to their des- 
tination. The second morning they crossed 
over the outcropping spur that was thrust out 
from the main chain of hills and reached far 
out in the flats, reaching the sheep ranch at 
noon. 

There were several men turned up at the 
214 : 


FUR SIGN 


cookhouse for the noon meal but there was 
none who resembled the Neils. The sheepman 
nodded when Kennedy casually inquired if the 
Cole boys had worked for him. 

“ Last year,” he said. “ But they quit in 
the fall.” 

His eyes flickered away from Kennedy’s and 
the old trapper did not pursue the subject. 

Off toward the base of the hills a few home- 
stead cabins showed in the distance and when 
the three friends rode away from the sheep 
ranch Kennedy headed for one of these. A 
man was stringing fence wire on a line of new 
posts as they rode up. 

“ Taking up a pasture homestead? ” Ken- 
nedy asked. 

“ Mine’s over there,” the man answered, 
pointing to another cabin a mile or more away. 
“ This belongs to one of the Coles. The other 
one filed on the next section to this. I’m get- 
ting paid to build fence on their filings.” 

“ Where are the Coles hanging out now? ” 
Kennedy asked. 

“ Back in the hills,” the man informed. 

215 


FUR SIGN 


“ They wintered up there, figuring to mn ouT 
some marten traps. Likely they’re head- 
quartering at the summer sheep camp.” 

“ That’s the final link,” Kennedy stated 
'lafter they had left the homestead. “ Now we 
know the reason why the Neils were anxious 
to stay and tried to drive you out instead of 
slipping away themselves when they heard you 
were in the country. A man can file on a 
square mile of grazing land now under the new 
Pasture Act. Both the Neils filed and the 
owner of the sheep ranch is likely paying for 
their improvements. Then when they prove 
up he’ll give them a couple of thousand apiece 
for their land. That makes it soft for the 
Neils. They can herd sheep in the summers 
and poach on the Forest of winters while their 
prove-up work is being done by some one else, 
then get a nice piece of money at the end of 
three years without having worked for it. 
That’s why that sheepman wouldn’t give us 
any information. He wants to see them stay 
long enough to prove up and deed their land 
over to him.” 


216 


FUR SIGN 


The day after their return to the ranch the 
three of them set forth again, this time on foot, 
each packing a single blanket and food for 
three days. They climbed the length of Bob- 
cat Canyon and struck the solid timber above 
the rims. Here the heavy drifts were shel- 
tered and a four-foot layer of old snow 
stretched before them in the timber. 

“ We won’t set foot on dry gi’ound again,” 
Kennedy said. “ Not till we get back. These 
drifts will stay on till midsummer and it will 
be some time in May before a man could put a 
horse through as far as the sheep camp.” 

Hour after hour they toiled on across the 
^snow. Spring thaws had settled and packed 
the drifts and their feet sank but a few inches 
below the surface. This dead-white expanse 
seemed another world apart from the one they 
had just left, for there was no snow below the 
rims. Once again they were on the trail ^of the 
Neils. 

“ It seems like old times,” Wally said. 
“ Our tracking down this Neil outfit.” 

“ Sort of carries you back to the time we 
^217 


FUR SIGN 


raided their camp in the San tag,” Kennedy 
agreed. 

They had made a late start and night shut 
down over the hills when they had covered half 
the distance. 

“ I’ll show you how to lay out overnight in 
the snow when it’s not too cold,” Kennedy said. 
“ It’s a better way than trying to mess round 
with a fire on top of four feet of snow.” 

He inspected several windfall jams that rose 
above the snow till he found one where two 
huge logs lay side by side and some two feet 
apart. They covered the snow between the 
logs with a six-inch layer of spruce bows and 
lined the inner sides of the logs, then lay down 
in single file the length of this nest, each one 
rolled in his single blanket. In the morning 
they held on across the drifts but stopped when 
within a mile of the sheep camp and waited for 
darkness. An hour after sunset they reached 
the edge of the timber and peered at the little 
cabin that stood a hundred yards out in an 
open basin. The door was closed but a light 

gleamed brightly from the single window. 

218 


FUR SIGN 


“ You stay here in the edge of the timber,” 
Kennedy instructed Bob. “ Then if one of 
’em gets out and makes a break for the trees 
you can head him off. Wally and I will slip 
up to the cabin. If we can reach the door 
we’ll throw it open and hold them up before 
they know what’s happened. If they’ve got 
a dog and he gives the alarm we’ll make a 
run for it and try to reach the door by the 
time they open it to see what’s going on out- 
side.” 

Bob watched the two figures move across 
the snow toward the cabin. Then he saw Ken- 
nedy’s head in silhouette against the light of 
the window as the old trapper peered inside. 
The head was withdrawn and he could see only 
the dark wall of the cabin with the single beam 
of light from the window. Suddenly there 
were two gleams of light, for the door had 
swung open and Kennedy’s shape was outlined 
in black against the yellow light from the in- 
side of the doorway. He heard Kennedy’s 
voice. 

“Steady!” it ordered. “Sit tight! Just 
219 


FUR SIGN 


stay right in your chair. We’ll excuse you for 
not rising to greet us.” 

Kennedy passed through the door, followed 
by Wally. In another instant Bob would have 
started out across the open to join them but 
his spine suddenly tingled at the sound of a 
slight cough behind him. He peered round the 
tree against which he had been standing. A 
few moments past his eyes had been adjusted 
to the night and objects had been discernible 
at fifty yards across the white snowy floor of 
the timber; but he had been peering toward 
the light from the cabin and now he blinked 
without seeing and the forest behind him 
seemed but a black wall. He heard the crunch 
of a foot on the snow. His pupils readjusted 
themselves to the darkness and he made out a 
shape moving toward him under the trees. 
The man breathed heavily as he came forward, 
his eyes trained on the open door of the cabin. 
The murmur of voices had reached his ears and 
he knew that all was not well. He reached the 
edge of the timber and stood by a tree not six 

feet from the boy. His body was concealed 
220 


FUR SIGN 


by the trunk but the barrel of his rifle showed 
beyond it, half raised toward the cabin. Bob 
raised his own rifle to cover the man when 
he should step from behind the sheltering 
trunk. There was a lessening of the light 
from the cabin and Wally’s figure was sharply 
outlined against the yellow gleam of the door- 
way. 

“ Come on, Bob, we’ve got one of ’em,” he 
called. “ It’s Bantam Neil for a fact.” 

The man behind the tree s^vung his gun into 
line. Bob dropped his own gun and with a 
single step he seized the rifle barrel that was 
trained on Wally. 

“ Drop it! ” he ordered. 

The man grunted with surprise, took one 
backward step, and the rifle slipped from his 
fingers. Bob aimed a blow at his head but a 
low-hanging limb obstructed the sweep of the 
gun and wrenched it aside and the sight cut a 
gash in his palm as it slipped through his 
hands. The boy leaped for the man and 
crashed down on top of him as his enemy 

tripped and toppled baclavards into the snow. 

221 


FUR SIGN 


The man was far more powerful than the boy 
and his hands sought Bob’s throat. Even in 
the dim light under the trees Bob recognized 
the man as Reese Neil. Twice he wrenched 
away from the clutching fingers and swung his 
fist solidly into Neil’s face. Then the hands 
clamped do^vn and shut off his wind. Neither 
combatant heard the crunch of boots on snow 
as Wally leaped across the open space from 
the cabin. Neil squirmed on top and raised to 
his knees, throwing every ounce of his strength 
into the pressure of his hands. The boy seized 
his wrists but could not break the deadly hold 
that was shutting off his breath. Neil’s fingers 
suddenly relaxed. The air rushed back to 
Bob’s lungs as Neil sprawled limply across 
him. Wally had struck the man full on the 
point of the jaw as he knelt over Bob in the 
snow. 

The two boys marched Neil to the cabin 
where Kennedy guarded his partner. 

“ Here we are — all gathered together 
again,” Kennedy said. “ Just like that time 
down in the Santag Swamp.” 

222 


FUR SIGN 


‘‘ What right have you got holding us up? ” 
Neil demanded. 

“ You’re going in to answer a charge of sef- 
ting a spring-gun and killing elk for their 
teeth,” Kennedy stated. 

“ You couldn’t prove it in a thousand years 
and you know it,” Neil stated. 

“ I don’t need to,” Kemiedy answered. 
“ You’ll likely confess.” 

Neil opened his mouth to deny any such pos- 
sibility but the old trapper waved him to si- 
lence. 

“ Or maybe you won’t,” he went on. “ The 
choice lays with you. You can either tell them 
of your own free will and accord all about how 
you stole Bob’s gun and set it on the pack 
trail and about killing elk for their teeth or you 
can go back to the Flint Hills to face that rob- 
bery charge — which will likely send you up 
for ten years. It’s all one with me, so you take 
your choice. I see by that pile of beaver pelts 
that you’ve been poaching beaver on the For- 
est Reserve. As long as you’ve changed your 

name to Cole it’s certain you’ve made false 
223 


FUR SIGN 


affidavit in filing application for a homestead. 
Why, you’ve planted your foot in it so many 
different ways that you could be arrested by 
a game warden, a ranger, a U. S. Marshal or 
the sheriff.” 

“ But how are you going to arrest me? ” 
Neil demanded. “ You’re not any of those. 
You’ll have to have a warrant sworn out and 
send an officer out for me. You can’t arrest 
me yourself.” 

“ As far as the law reads you’re right,” Ken- 
nedy admitted. “ But according to facts I’m 
going to take you along. You can stand on 
your rights and refuse to go — and if you do 
I’ll drag you in by the heels. So you better 
make up your mind about which way you’ll 
travel. You Neils have come to the end of 
your rope.” 

A week later the three friends sat before the 
home cabin in the falling dusk. 

“ The only thing that’s fretting you now is 
that overdue payment,” Kennedy said. 
“ When you get ready to meet it you can pay 

it to me. I took over the place from Lawton, 
224 : 


FUR SIGN 


subject to your contract. You’re paying me a 
good rate of interest so I’m in no hurry. An- 
other two or three years of hard work and 
you’ll be in the clear.” 

A buckboard rattled up the lane. It was 
piled high with luggage. The McIntyre boys 
too had reached their goal and were olf to 
make their start in the city. They had cut 
across for a parting word with old friends on 
the way to the train. 

“ I guess all of us have found what we 
wanted the most,” Bob said, as the rattle of the 
buckboard died out in the distance. He gazed 
off at the towering ranges outlined against the 
sky. The breeze carried the sharp tang of 
spruce and lodgepole, the acrid spice of sage, 
and he shook his head as he thought of trading 
it for the reek of steaming pavements. A 
range bull bawled hoarsely and a coyote lifted 
his voice from the flank of the hills. 

“ I hope they’ll like it, where they’re going,” 
Bob said. “ But me — well, I’m satisfied with 
this.” 


225 


If 0 



“J[ story that recalls Jack London* s *The Call of the Wild.** 

— Kansas City Star. 


The Yellow Horde 


By HAL G. EVARTS 

With illustrations by Charles Livingston Bull. 

V 

12mo. Cloth. 227 pages. 


“Tie book is full of descriptions and explanations of the habits 
of vaiious wild animals, elks, bears and so on, as well as wolves 
and c)yotes. It is clearly and vigorously written, a very good 
specimen of the particular type of fiction to which it belongs.” 
— The New York Times. 

“Tie book is written with a unique understanding of the coyote 
and wolf nature, by a man versed in the ways of the wolf trappers 
and at the same time deeply sympathetic with the ways of the 
animals, so that the tale grows upon a reader to the extent of 
awaking in him a mingled awe, astonishment and illumination 
regarc-ing natm-e's endowment to the animal world.” — Houston 
Post. 

“Mr. Evarts conveys the feeling of wild life, and remote, wind- 
swept spaces in ‘The Yellow YLorde.* **— Philadelphia North 
American. 

“It is a story of the big outdoors that charms the reader to the 
last pige.” — St. Louis Globe Democrat. 


LITTLE, BROWN & CO. , Publishers 
34 Beacon Street, Boston 



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